


Ex Libris

by Aesoleucian



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, booksellers au, relatively pleasant au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 60,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: “If I told you I had a Leitner for sale, would you be interested?”“I’d ask why you’re trying to sell it to me instead of getting a better price from someone who actually has a use for it."-------------------MAGNUS BOOKSEvery book has a story-------------------





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This AU was basically born from me and J going "hey what if Leitner actually WAS making those books?" So now we have an AU where there's a magic-hunter booksellers community, avatars are much more interested in books, and magic works slightly differently. Also, because he deserves it, Jon's bookstore has a cat. I'm finally confident I'll actually finish writing this, so I'll be updating Sundays.  
> .  
> .  
> .

FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER

His heart thumps painfully in his chest. His mouth is dry, his fingers shaking. They want to turn the first page. Jon himself doesn’t. Although he has a sample size of exactly one, he has never been more confident of anything in his life than that any book with Jurgen Leitner’s bookplate contains deadly danger.

He isn’t sure how long he remains frozen with his trembling hand poised over the first page. He doesn’t move until Martin opens the door to bustle in and look for new stock, at which point he snaps it shut and hides it under a pile of other books, hoping Martin hasn’t noticed. All he gets is a vaguely curious look, but by then he’s already entering the information for the next book, an 1832 collection of Childe Ballads. There is no way he can allow one of Leitner’s books to be sold to an unsuspecting customer, so he doesn’t put it in the system. Instead he slips it into his bag and continues his work.

His work is interesting, but not quite interesting enough to keep his mind from wandering to the book, so frequently that he starts making mistakes. Entering the new books into the inventory takes much longer than it should, and every time he opens one there’s a tiny stab of adrenaline before he registers that there is no Leitner bookplate. That finally done, though, he’s free to read. It’s important, after all, to be able to make recommendations, and this is the part of his job he enjoys the most. As a child he was so motivated by novelty that he refused to read multiple books by the same author; now he gets paid for it. He even nearly manages to forget the awful nameless book.

At some point Martin comes into the back to ask whether he’s had lunch yet—maybe the shift is changing? Jon grunts, or possibly gives him a coherent answer. What really matters is that Martin goes away and Jon can be _not_ in this reality, not sitting next to a book he feels is about to grow spindly legs and climb out of his bag.

All the books at the shop are interesting, anyway. The curation is excellent, and they’re what Jon would call _his type_ : histories, ethnographies, folk tales, everything alluringly ancient and appealingly explicable.

“Having fun?” asks Tim’s dry voice from the other side of the table. Jon looks up. He’s not sure what time it is, but it must be substantially past noon.

“Er, yes, I just lost track of time.”

“I knew you’d take to this job like a fish to water, but wow. Also, Martin said you hadn’t eaten anything so he got you this sandwich.” Tim pointedly takes a bite of it, and then grins and offers it to Jon.

“You’re not sick, are you,” says Jon, but he’s already taking it. He knows his duty to his body: even if he really, really doesn’t want to eat, he still has to.

“Yeah,” says Tim through his mouthful of sandwich. “Dead contagious. I’m actually thinking of reintroducing the black plague.” He swallows. “What d’you think?”

Jon doesn’t dignify that with a reply.

“You’re right, it would send the economy down the toilet. Anyway, this has been nice but I’d rather be minding the counter than lurking in your cave. I’ll come check on you at closing so you don’t stay here and become a mummy.”

Jon glares at his back without any real heat and returns to reading. The shop cat, Annie, appears in his lap and he pets her vaguely until he forgets to keep moving his hand. Still, she seems content enough to keep him company while the afternoon wears on and he works his way through two more books.

He only stops when Annie startles him by standing up quickly in some excitement and leaping off his lap. Ah, yes, Tim is in the corner rattling food into her bowl. “Closing time?” Jon asks.

“Thought that’d get your attention. You ready to join us in the real world again?”

Jon isn’t, but he’s pretty good at pretending. He slings his bag over his shoulder, ignoring how it feels like it’s burning, and helps Tim close up under the guise of observation, “In case I ever end up staying later than you.”

“All right,” says Tim as he locks up, “what’s got you so jittery? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with this much nervous energy.”

Jon takes a deep breath. Lets it out. “Have you ever heard of Jurgen Leitner?” he asks.

“Leitner? Eh, he’s a bit of a recluse except when he turns up to auctions. I’ve heard his M.O. is basically buying up tons of books for half their market value and then reselling them at twice their market value. Some of the books he sells are worth an insane amount of money. So, standard rich guy, I guess. Interestingly, he’s actually related to… oh, look at you, you don’t care. What are you so surprised about?”

Jon shrugs, unwilling to let on that he was expecting something much less mundane. He wasn’t really expecting to get a meaningful answer at all. “Have you ever heard of his books associated with… er, anything weird? Disappearances, that sort of thing?”

“Aw, is this your newest conspiracy theory? I don’t really know that much. I’m just a clerk. I would tell you to ask Elias, but he’s…”

“Close-minded? Cagey? Oddly unwilling to entertain even the possibility of the supernatural?”

“I mean, I was going to go with ‘a boring asshole’ but that works too. Anyway, he’s definitely going to take you to the next big auction, you’ll see Leitner there. And you can interrogate the other booksellers to your heart’s content.”

Jon frowns down the street, hands shoved deep into his pockets. What if they don’t want to talk? If only there were some way to safely test the properties of Leitner’s books…

“What makes you think his books would make people disappear, anyway? Dare I ask?”

“You dare not,” mutters Jon.

“Gosh. All right, then, forget I said anything.”

 

Jon spends the rest of the night looking for anything he can find on Jurgen Leitner. He can’t think why he didn’t do it before, except that he must have forgotten the exact name until he found it stamped on the inside cover of that nameless, authorless book. Jurgen Leitner is of the Leitner family, which has been associated with a Norwegian petroleum company called Upartisk but now seems to have no other occupation than being rich. He appeared on the rare and antique book scene somewhat before 1970, but information on the books he deals in is curiously absent. No-one online is talking about their being dangerous, and he only finds one mention of Leitner’s books at all, in a forum post from 2003:

_titusbooks: Has anyone else noticed an uptick in Leitners this past year? I feel like I’ve been seeing more of them and I don’t even go to his auctions._

_PetersonM: Titus, check your IMs._

And that’s it. Just one tantalizingly vague reference to their being a notable phenomenon—and something that isn’t talked about in public. He leans back in his chair and pulls the nameless book out of his bag. He barely wants to touch it, let alone open it, so he just holds it out accusingly in front of him. “What are you?” he asks.

To nobody’s surprise, it doesn’t answer. He’s stuck: if he looks inside he may be taken, or trapped, or changed. If he doesn’t, he will never know, and that’s almost worse. He knows himself, despite what some people might say of him. He knows his curiosity has almost gotten him killed before. This time he’s going to be the master of it, and not read the damned book.

He slides it onto his bookshelf between a book on Etruscan archaeological sites and his favorite translation of Herodotos’ _Histories_ , and there he leaves it until it is almost too late.

 

No more large boxes of books come in for the next few weeks, so when he has the free time Jon occupies himself by making his way through the display shelves. Rosie sets him up with a Magnus Books email so he can contact potential buyers and sellers, and he does indeed schedule a few appointments to haggle over rare editions with the managers of other shops.

In one such conversation he drops the name Leitner just to see what kind of reaction it will get. “If I told you I had a Leitner for sale,” he tells Andre Colburn of Starboard Books, “would you be interested?”

Andre looks amused. “Who hasn’t? I’d ask why you’re trying to sell it to me instead of getting a better price from someone who actually has a use for it. Now, look, I’m going to need you to walk me through why you think this was printed in Dresden, because I’m not seeing it…”

Jon lets it drop, embarrassed, and doesn’t try again. What could Andre’s answer possibly mean? Who has a ‘use’ for these horrible books? How many _are_ there? Does every book shop really have one?

He goes home and orders from the takeaway down the street and feels guilty about the smell when he doesn’t have time to clean his flat. He comes back to work and reads feverishly; goes home and researches feverishly. He’s never had more engaging work, even when he got to choose his own thesis, but that—that wasn’t _real_. There are consequences if he fails to find out what’s going on, even if he doesn’t know what they are yet. Jurgen Leitner haunts him like a spectre, tantalizing and unsettling at once. He feels like every new search could turn up the answer to the mystery. Tension builds in him, and he can’t concentrate on his official work. He nods at the table in the back room, staring out through the doorway as Martin chats up customers instead of concentrating on an atlas from 1901, or reading the same line over and over when he can’t tune out Tim’s cheerful whistling.

He does end up asking Elias, on one of the rare occasions he actually visits the shop. “Leitner seems to have an eye for books worth more than they’re being sold for,” Elias tells him. “Booksellers trust him to sell them interesting finds. I was going to ask you to come to this month’s auction, so you might meet him. You’ll need to learn the procedures well enough to go without me in case I have other business. I hope you’ve been studying your rare editions.”

He smiles at Jon, who nods. Oh, yes, he’s been studying. At times it feels like he’s trying to cram an infinite amount of contradictory knowledge into his head. He ought to study more, in fact, since the auction is on the second, only about a week away.

He searches his flat for the box of catalogues from the last five monthly auctions. The smell is really becoming quite horrible. For some reason it’s strongest near the bookshelf in his sitting room rather than near the overflowing bin in his kitchen. He leans down to sniff at the books and the smell, reminiscent of something growing in a sink drain, is almost overpowering. Oh, that isn’t good. He pulls out a book at random and when he tries to open it he finds that most of the pages are stuck together with malodorous blue-grey slime. He pulls more books to check them, growing more and more desperate, until finally one is clean. He doesn’t catch much more on the page he flipped to than a brief phrase— _reaching up over the edge_ —before he thinks to check what it is he’s holding.

It’s the unnamed Leitner book. The only one on the whole shelf that isn’t rotting, of course it’s the damned Leitner. Why should they only be dangerous if someone reads them? _Stupid_. But he can’t throw it away, can he. Someone might pick it up. Throw it in the Thames and it would probably kill all the fish. Burn it? Maybe he should burn it.

But he’s exhausted from panic right now, still grieving over all his books reduced to unreadable mush, and they’re going to need to be thrown out before something soaks into his carpet. He doesn’t even have a lighter right now, since he threw away all of his when he quit smoking. He throws the rest of the books into bags and places the nameless book on top, then tries to search the empty shelf carefully for signs of mold or rot. He’s too tired to do a good job, but it should do for now. Just for tonight it should be safe enough to leave the book there, however little he wants to sleep in the same building with it.

He doesn’t end up sleeping much anyway. At around four in the morning he finally gives up trying and starts hauling all his books out to the dumpster in foul-smelling rubbish bags. At five he puts the nameless book in its own bag and thoroughly scrubs down the bookshelf with disinfectant. At six he takes a long hot shower and barely resists trying to bleach his hands. At quarter to seven he makes a quick, indifferent omelette and at quarter past he decides it’s finally late enough that he can reasonably go to work. He brings the nameless book with him, double-bagged and pristine and smelling of rot, where he can keep an eye on it, and on the way he picks up a lighter at a 24-hour convenience store.

He unlocks the door of the shop in the twilit predawn, and when he walks in he fully intends to go straight to the alley behind the shop to burn it. But Annie trots out of the darkness, belly wagging, and starts meowing loudly for her breakfast even though it’s too early. So Jon feeds her, and realizes he needs to take care of her litter in the back room, and then there’s litter everywhere that he has to sweep up, and by the time he’s finished cleaning the shop he’s nearly forgotten about it, so he starts up the computer to check the shop’s email. There are two new requests to drop off books, to which he replies that they’re welcome to come by today or tomorrow for an appraisal. His hand keeps drifting to his bag, as if to make sure the plastic-swaddled book is still inside. But he doesn’t actually open the bag, or even pick it up. He should burn it now. He should burn it _now_.

Now, for certain.

He’s still wrestling with his own unwillingness to destroy an unread book when Martin comes in to properly open up the shop. He seems surprised that Jon got here before him, but that’s none of his business, is it?

Soon after the shop opens at half past nine one of the sellers comes in, a tiny man in a thick striped scarf that seems too warm for late April. He introduces himself as Mike Crew, sits down with Jon in the back room, and thanks Martin for the tea he insists on making, then pulls three books out of his bag. “They weren’t as interesting as I thought they’d be,” he explains. “I got them at Pinhole down in Morden. The prices there are ridiculous, but they usually do have really interesting stuff. So I don’t sell to them if I can help it, but you guys always give me a fair price, so here I am.” He winks at Jon. “At least, if you’re anything like the last acquisitions manager.”

“I’ll do my best to be fair. Martin, do you have something to say?”

“Er, no,” says Martin, who has been hovering over the table for as long as they’ve been sat there. “I just wanted to make sure you have your recorder. Here you go.” He puts down an actual magnetic tape recorder on the table in front of Jon, who gives him the look this deserves.

“For my story,” says Crew. Somehow, in the brief time Jon was looking at Martin, Annie has appeared perched on his shoulders, squinting so that she looks like nothing more than a cat-shaped hole in space. Crew tickles her under the chin, and Jon can hear her purring from across the table. “I’ve got to tell you why I’m selling these. Martin never forgets to make me talk, do you, even when I wish you would.”

“Every book has a story, Mike,” says Martin. “It’s right there on the sign.”

“But you _have_ forgotten to tell your manager about the procedure, you should fix that. Anyway, I’m getting to it. Where was I? Yes, here. It ended up being less of an instruction manual and more of a survey, but you can see it’s a first edition. Go on, take a look. Then there’s this one. _Key of Solomon_ , 1863. It’s actually got multiple, which is rather exciting, though none of them turned out to be mine. I bought it—”

“Multiple what?” Jon interrupts. Crew raises his eyebrows.

“Multiple powers. At least two, possibly more. Martin, have you really not told this guy _anything_? He completely new to rare books or something?”

“I started here a month ago,” says Jon, irritated to find someone talking over his head, and to _Martin_ of all people. “But I have prior experience.”

“Clearly you don’t. Will you let me finish?” Jon nods with bad grace. “I bought it about two months ago—I think Keay must have gotten it from the March auction. I was lucky enough to be just about the first customer since, or at least the first customer who could afford it. Keay told me she hadn’t inspected it yet but she knows I like to find out for myself. We haggled a bit and settled on 55,000. I’m sure you can get more for it if you sell it to the right person, though. So I take it home and start reading.  With my rusty French—this is a French translation, by the way—I work out the prayer I’m supposed to say. And it’s not very specific, so I have no way to know what it’s invoking. But I decide to try the first purification, the knife to cut the quill pen, and just to be safe I’m concentrating hard on what loves me. And the strangest thing happens. As soon as I’m done sanctifying the knife my hand takes it and stabs down right through the table and into my thigh. I feel it scrape bone, and I know I’m in deep trouble.

“So I’m freaking the hell out. I didn’t sign up for this. I’ve just stabbed myself and I don’t understand why, because nothing in the prayer referred directly to any of the violent powers and I really felt I was giving it my all. There aren’t many times I feel exposed, any more, but at that moment I felt—flayed. Like my skin had been peeled back and my raw quivering nerves were open to the hostile air. Like heavy hot breath on the back of my neck. I pulled the knife out, careful not to let _any_ blood touch the book. I didn’t trust the knife at all, after that, and I had to have it melted down. But that was later. I limped into the bathroom, cursing through gritted teeth, and started disinfecting and wrapping the wound. When that was done I still felt raw. I knew it was waiting for me to keep going, so even though every movement made my skin sting like fire I dragged myself up to the rooftop. The wind made it hurt worse, I won’t deny. What loves me is not gentle. But I steeled myself and threw myself off the edge, and it hurt more than I could have imagined. It hurt more than being struck by lightning. I felt my skin shredded by the relentless wind, I screamed, I sobbed—but if you don’t have faith, what do you have? When I landed the feeling was gone. I was purged. That’s the real purification, not anything you can read in a book.

“I picked the thing up and, maybe this was foolish, but I was high on trust at that point. There was nothing I couldn’t do, so I continued with the blessings over the tools. I think… I thought I could turn it toward the vast, because there was nothing in the words that said it had to belong to whatever violent power had tried to claim me. I was prepared for it to try and take control again, but I wasn’t prepared for the blessing over the ink to dim all the lights in my flat. That’s including the skylights, oh, and this was in the early afternoon. I stopped halfway through, wondering how many powers could be in this book. I still don’t know, and good luck to you figuring it out, but I wasn’t touching the damned thing any more.

“Still,” says Crew, sitting up straight with a crooked smile, “two or more in one. That’s going to get you a pretty penny, thanks to my putting myself in danger for you. It took weeks to get all the darkness out of my flat, you know, it sticks around scumming up the corners, and I’m only here now because I can finally walk again. So you’re welcome.”

“Oh, your poor leg!” says Martin, leaning over as if he’s going to see blood seeping through Crew’s trousers. “Are you all right?”

“More or less,” says Crew, and beams at him. “All the better for your asking, Martin. Now, Mr. Sims, how does 65k sound? For my trouble?”

£65,000 sounds like far more than this book should be worth, even if it _is_ from 1863 and _especially_ if it really does try to kill whoever uses it. Jon reaches out and very gently flips the front cover to look at the inside.

FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER

“We can’t sell this to anyone,” he murmurs. “It would be—it would be wrong.”

Crew leans over to pat him on the shoulder, and for a moment he loses track of where he is, can’t breathe, gets a confused impression of tumbling wind and the vast sky—“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Sims. You make sure no-one gets their hands on it who can’t handle it, eh?”

He blinks at Crew, dazed, trying to grasp the understanding that this man is _something else_. “It, uh… won’t it hurt the other books?”

“Not with our Martin around! Listen, Martin, maybe you should handle this one, explain everything to Mr. Sims later, and next time he won’t be so confused. 65k, yes or no?”

“If we paid everyone £10,000 who gave us information about a new Leitner we’d be out of business,” says Martin apologetically. “I think I could justify sixty, though?”

“Come on, you’re going to sell it for, what, seventy? Eighty?”

“You don’t even use money for anything other than buying books!”

“Sixty-three.”

“Sixty-two.”

“Oh, all right. What about the other two?”

“Oh, er, I don’t actually know anything about appraising. So… Jon?”

He wants to stand up and walk out, or shout at them how insane this all is. But it wouldn’t help, and if he can play along long enough to get his hands on this cursed book he can destroy it too. So he works out prices for Crew’s other two books (egg money next to the _Key of Solomon_ ) and makes the pleasantest small talk he can, which isn’t very. Afterward he sits vacantly in the back room, while in the front of the shop he can hear Crew telling Martin his new manager is a bit strange, and it won’t be much of a surprise if they have to find a new one in the next couple of months. His hand is locked around the book, sweating into its leather binding. Should he take it and burn it now, before Martin comes back? Can he possibly pretend to lose it?

“Always nice when Mike comes by,” says Martin, ducking back out of the shop front. “He’s so much nicer than a lot of the others. Anyway, hand that over, I’ll teach you how to neutralize it.”

“N—neutralize it?” Jon croaks. He’s standing up before he knows it, and Martin actually backs away a couple of steps. “They can be _neutralized_?”

“Yes? You didn’t really think I’d just let it sit in the shop? Clearly you’ve seen a Leitner before—”

“None of this was necessary,” Jon hisses. “All this—stupid—you’re telling me that if I’d just given it to you in the first place it wouldn’t have destroyed my entire library?”

“What?” says Martin, now looking alarmed.

In reply Jon slams the rubbish bag down on the table and peels it open.

“That’s why the inventory was one short at the beginning of the month? Jon, you can’t just steal books from the shop because you don’t want to sell them!”

“How was I supposed to know you could neutralize them! As far as I knew there was nothing you could do with a Leitner except let it _destroy_ you. Which could have been easily remedied if you weren’t so busy playing the fool!”

“I was trying to protect you!” Martin shouts. He towers over Jon now by what must be six inches, the opposite of the man who has been very successfully making himself small for as long as Jon has worked with him. “If you weren’t so—so—you don’t have to take things on yourself! You can let them be!”

Jon doesn’t make any reply. He’s too busy watching Martin for any sign that he intends to _do something about it_ , poised to flee.

“I was waiting until it came up,” Martin mutters. “You never do all your orientation for new employees at once. It overwhelms them. And give me the stupid lighter. Burning these is a terrible idea if you don’t know what’s in them. Plus Elias would kill you.”

Jon stares at him, and then takes the lighter out of his bag and drops it on the table. Martin scoops it up and it disappears into his pocket. “Great. Okay.” He lets out a gusty sigh. “Sorry about that. It’s just kind of stressful. I’m sure you’re stressed out too. I hope your… the rest of your house is okay?”

“As far as I know.”

“Right! Um, so, we’ll do this one first since it’s probably a more straightforward one-power thing. Ho-how did it destroy your library, exactly?”

“Rot.” Martin sits down, and Jon rather reluctantly follows suit. As soon as he does, Annie appears on the back of his chair in a scrabbling of claws to peer over his shoulder.

“All right! Okay, good, th-that’s corruption, then. Usually for that one I use beholding, since I’m better with it. Comes with the job, you know?” He laughs the tiny laugh that usually indicates he’s just made a joke that he’s aware isn’t funny, but Jon doesn’t understand what it could possibly be. “So, the way that works is that studying, um, microorganisms and bugs and stuff makes them less scary. You know, it’s hard to be terrified of something if you can name its genus. So we’re going to do a simple search through the book for all the, um, I call them ‘affecting agents,’ it really just means everything in there that’s scary?”

For the first time since he took an advanced political science class instead of the minimum requirement because it fit his schedule better, Jon has less than no idea what is going on. He tries to bluff it. “I hope you’re not going to do that by actually reading it.”

“Oh! No, no, absolutely not. I don’t have a deathwish. I’m not actually sure if you can do this? You’ll probably have to work here for a bit first, and I’m afraid I can’t explain it. But the way I do it is I… well, we own this book, right, we paid for it. So it’s part of our archive. And I know what’s in our archive. So…”

While Jon is staring at him in complete incomprehension, Martin rifles through his own pockets for a notepad and a pen, and then starts writing. Jon can read his neat round handwriting even upside down.

 _Klebsiella aerogenes_  
_Pseudomonas aeruginosa_  
_Helminthosporium oryza_  
_Ancylostoma duodenale…_

He recognizes a few well-known diseases and what he thinks is a kind of beetle. But Martin also writes _irregularly clustered holes_ and, five lines later, _touched by stranger_.

“Are you… writing out trigger warnings,” he says.

Martin doesn’t stop writing or even glance up; his face has a blank, intent look. But he says, “That’s quite a good way of looking at it! That’s the point of trigger warnings, isn’t it, to put power in the hands of the reader and help control fear. Oh, they hate that. Just a minute.”

But he writes for far longer than a minute, until he’s filled up five pages of his small notebook. Then he sits up, tears them out, and asks Jon to pass the clear tape so he can tape them into the cover. “This is all very well and good,” says Jon as he passes the tape, “but it’s not going to prevent it from rotting the other books. _They_ can’t exactly use trigger warnings to control their fear.”

“They don’t need to! If it isn’t frightening to people, it won’t bother. Um, we should move on to the _Key of Solomon_ , if that’s okay?” When he gets Jon’s reluctant nod he goes on, “It’s going to be trickier since we don’t know exactly what’s in it, and especially because it sounds like the affecting agents aren’t in the text? But, um, since we do know two of the powers associated with it—I mean, kind of, one and a half maybe—”

“What are they, then,” Jon snaps, growing impatient with having _nothing_ explained.

“Oh, well, obviously one of them is darkness, and I’m really sorry I can’t go into exactly what that means right now, but I just want to finish this? The other one is probably slaughter, meat, or the hunt, which, I know sound really similar but that’s because they sort of are. But there’s a good chance the vast will do it—it’s sort of clean and impersonal, you know? And if we’re lucky it will do for darkness too. That might even be why it disliked Mike so much.”

Martin tapes another piece of notebook paper inside the cover and starts drawing something that Jon’s eyes refuse to understand, something much larger than the paper it’s drawn on. As Martin finishes and closes the book, Jon could swear that for a moment he sees the inside cover billow out into a vaulted ceiling along the lines of ink, an enormous space inside no space at all. But when he opens it again to inspect the drawing, it’s clear he was just imagining things. The cover is as flat as it ever was. The drawing itself is not a drawing _of_ anything, more a disconnected iconography that means nothing to him. He doesn’t voice his skepticism that this could possibly help contain the book’s power. No, he’ll wait and watch, and learn as much as he can about how to neutralize Leitner’s books.

“Teach me how to do that,” he says.

“All right. But is it okay if we go do it in the front? Only, I like to make sure people who come in can see there’s someone here…”


	2. Chapter 2

Although he doesn’t think it’s necessary, Jon is wearing his nicest suit of clothes—to be honest, his _only_ nice suit of clothes, the one he wears to job interviews and funerals. He rather envies some of the other booksellers at the auction, those who are so unintimidated by the Reform Club’s rich atmosphere that they’ve come wearing cardigans or windbreakers. He scans the chattering pre-auction crowd for Elias, even though he doesn’t intend to stay by his boss’ side all evening, and the hand in his pocket grips his most reliable pen. It’s stupid to bring it and tell himself it’s a weapon, but it does make him feel better.

As he drifts through the front hall and into the open room beyond it, he sees a few of the sellers he’s haggled with—there’s Andre Colburn, who waves at him from a group of strangers; Adelard Dekker in a sharp deep green suit that matches his partner’s. Jon doesn’t feel the need to talk to any of them. He’s not here to make _friends_ , no matter what Elias might imply. He’s here to stalk the enemy.

So, in the way of every party Jon has ever been to, he ends up hanging awkwardly around the books displayed at the edges of the room, listening with half an ear to everyone else. At least he’s in good company; plenty of other people are here more for the books than to chat. Jon turns his back to the room to inspect the items up for auction, and stands just near enough to a group of people that he can hear their conversation. He’s quite taken aback when he realizes that they’re openly discussing protective measures against Leitner’s books:

“Apparently the math geniuses at Cambridge have developed some new kind of fractal,” a smiling young woman is saying. “Three-dimensional fractals, actual fractal objects. Imagine what you could do with one of those as a paperweight.”

“Has anyone tested whether a _stronger_ influence from one power manifests as a protective effect against _more_ other ones? Because if it were possible to use only one or two to cancel _anything_ —”

“No, no, no,” a professorial old man interrupts. “You’ll unbalance everything that way, Michael. Newcomers always think they can come up with some whizbang new solution—”

“I’ve been in the business for six years!”

“Call me back when you’ve survived twenty!”

Jon frowns down at yet another book that does not have Leitner’s bookplate. It hasn’t occurred to him before now, but the life expectancy in the rare books trade must be very low in England by virtue of the fact that Leitner lives here. Could that possibly be what happened to his predecessor? Elias only ever really mentioned that there was an open position…

Jon glances over his shoulder to see if he can identify any of the speakers, but he instead mistakenly catches the eye of a man dressed all in black, stood in the corner of the display tables with no apparent desire to look at what’s being sold. The man gives Jon a look that he can only describe as _the evil eye_ , as if he’s so angry at Jon’s audacity in looking at him that he’s trying to curse Jon with nothing but his flat stare. Jon looks away hurriedly, but he feels as if the man’s gaze is boring into his back, and he can’t concentrate on reading anything. Jon makes his way to the other side of the room, putting about a dozen people between them, but it doesn’t help the crawling feeling on the back of his neck. He clutches his pen more tightly in his pocket. Remember, Jon: the people here are dangerous. Otherwise they would be dead.

He tries to devote himself more seriously to bidding on titles he wants for the shop, and finally he has a use for the pen and notebook. This one will make a complete set of encyclopedias; this one will probably be of interest to Mr. Wang; this one Jon would very much like to read, and he’s sure _someone_ will buy it. Magnus Books has something of a specialization in histories and folk tales, which is one reason Jon works there, and it also makes it easier to choose which books not to bother with. He’s so focused on potential acquisitions that he completely fails to notice that his target has entered the room until—

“You’re a new face,” says a voice almost directly behind him. He spins around in surprise, clutching his notebook to his chest. “Who do you work with?”

“Ah—Magnus. I’m at Magnus Books. New acquisitions manager. Jonathan Sims.” He doesn’t hold out his hand to shake because he already _knows_ who he’s talking to and he doesn’t think he could bear it, but that just makes the man pat him familiarly on the shoulder. He’s not sure whether he’s relieved or even more anxious when he feels nothing like the rush of vertigo he got when Crew touched him.

“How wonderful to meet you, Mr. Sims. I’m Jurgen Leitner. I shall have to come and call on you one of these days. It’s been so long since I visited Magnus.” He leans in confidentially, and Jon has to stiffen to prevent himself from shrinking back. “I don’t think Elias likes me very much, but as long as he’s not in I don’t think it will do any harm.” He winks, and then smiles apologetically. “Sorry to intimidate you, Mr. Sims. I promise I don’t bite. I’ll leave you to your work, and perhaps I’ll see you another time.”

Leitner moves on to speak to Dekker and Robinson, leaving Jon with a crawling feeling on his shoulder that makes him want to scrub it.

He watches Leitner covertly until the auction begins. And he’s not the only one; everyone in the room seems to orient toward the man, either trying to catch his eye and talk to him or watching with expressions from neutral interest to barely-disguised hostility. Elias arrives at some point and looks over Jon’s shoulder at the list; nods in approval and suggests a few more titles that Jon hasn’t seen, possibly because they were too close to the man in black.

“Who is that?” he murmurs to Elias. “That man in the corner, looks a bit like he’d like to kill everyone here?”

“Who, Gerard Keay? I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s harmless.”

Jon’s not sure he believes that, but he gives a “Hm” in acknowledgement. “Anyone here who _is_ particularly dangerous that I should know about?”

“Robinson,” says Elias immediately.

“Care to elaborate?”

“The less you have to do with her, the better for your reputation. If you need to know more than that, I’d encourage you to flex your information-gathering muscles. Network, Jon. That’s part of you’re here for.”

Jon does not actually know how to network at all, and he knows that if he tries he will embarrass himself, so he continues looking through the auction items. Maybe later he’ll come up with a plan of action. More likely he’ll put it off forever and continue to be the misanthrope everyone he’s ever known has berated him for being. Yes, that sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?

He’s saved from this line of thought by the beginning of the auction, and Elias shepherding him into the bidding room. Elias is a very hands-off mentor, and seems content to let Jon work everything out for himself by watching the other people bidding. He’s less of a boring asshole, as Tim, called him, and more of a—he can’t possibly be a skeptic at an event where _everyone_ is talking about the supernatural properties of books. So he was lying to Jon earlier when he pretended not to, and he must have been lying to Tim, too. Jon nearly asks him, thinks better of it, and distracts himself with the bidding.

Although plenty of books for sale tonight are being sold by Leitner, only one of them is _from his Library_. At the end of the night the auctioneer carries a book up to the podium and lifts it, opening the cover to show the bookplate with an air of _the moment you’ve all been waiting for_. “A signed first edition of Danielewski’s _House of Leaves_ ,” she announces, “with an inscription to his nephew. I think we can all imagine what an utterly confounding read this will be. Right, Jurgen?”

Leitner, sitting in the front row, stands halfway up to make a little bow, and a wave of quiet laughter sweeps the room.

“A lot of people would give anything to be here tonight, for the opportunity to get their hands on this book. And one of you is going to be lucky enough to get to sell it to them. Starting at £20,000. Do I hear twenty?”

The bidding war is fierce, and takes place between perhaps six different people. Jon glances at Elias, who shakes his head serenely. “Let them fight it out,” he murmurs. “I prefer to bid when I can win, and this book isn’t a very good fit.”

In the end it sells for £44,000 to Amal Titus, who looks extremely smug about it and receives several claps on the back from those sitting nearest him. Then everyone begins to talk and mill about again, spilling out of the bidding room into the hall to see who has won the books on display there.

Jon is reasonably happy with what he’s taking home, but he can’t quite concentrate on noting it all down because the man in black—Gerard Keay—is stood in the corner staring at him again. He only stops when an old woman approaches him and starts speaking to him quietly. Jon takes the opportunity to finish and flee the building.

 

The next day he receives a letter—an actual paper letter, sealed with stamped wax and slipped into his letterbox—from Jurgen Leitner, stating his intent to visit Magnus Books on the ninth. Jon considers calling in sick that day, but not seriously. He may despise Leitner, but it’s far more important to find out _what_ he is doing, and _why_ , than it is for Jon to indulge his own fear. He spends the week reading the new acquisitions, answering emails, and going out to pubs a few times at Tim’s insistence: “The normal damn people in this shop have got to stick together, right?” he says when Jon asks him why the sudden invitations.

“Not Rosie?”

“You _have_ spoken to her? She’s even spookier than Martin. Jury’s still out on Elias, but since he’s the owner…”

“I have a feeling,” Jon tells him, “that Elias may the spookiest of all. There’s something a bit off about him, isn’t there?”

“Honestly I thought that was just because he’s, like, a rich businessman. Hey, hang on, did you meet Leitner at the monthly? I’ve never been allowed to go.”

“I did my best not to, but somehow he’s invited himself to the shop. On Monday, in case you need to catch some kind of illness.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Tim. “You know, he is Robert Smirke’s fourth-great grandson.”

“I still don’t understand why you would care. He was just an architect who liked symmetry.”

“Balance.”

“It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No, because when you told me about these Powers everyone’s apparently on about, I realized _what_ he was balancing. You’re learning the same thing. Balancing them against each other to stop them—I dunno, burning down the shop or whatever it is they’d do.”

Jon thinks of the old man at the auction who said that using any one power— _Power_ —too much would ‘unbalance everything.’ “So… you think Smirke passed on his secrets for, what, six generations? That’s rather little to go on.”

“You’re not listening, Jon. We literally know he’s distributing evil books from all the Powers. It doesn’t get much more balanced than that. I hope he comes in the afternoon… D’you think I could get Martin’s shift too for that day?”

Jon shrugs. “Ask him yourself. I don’t do your schedules.”

 

The ninth passes in tense anticipation. Jon is quite brusque with an old woman who’s come in to have him appraise a box of old books she found in her attic. Nowhere in the shop can he avoid hearing Tim’s tapping foot.

Closing time comes, and Tim shoves into the back room to say, “You sure you read that letter right? Was he playing a prank or something? I can’t believe I spent the whole day at work for nothing.”

“He did seem like he wanted to visit,” mutters Jon, but he’s too annoyed at the man to make any excuses for him. There’s making a mint off a library full of evil books, and then there’s _discourtesy_. O-obviously the evil books one is worse. But it’s not on the same level.

“Fuck this,” says Tim, slinging his coat over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go get pissed. You’re not invited, I’m mad at you too.”

“I didn’t _lie_ ,” Jon snaps, but Tim has already walked off into the drizzle, leaving him to lock up alone.

And that’s just what he thinks it is for the next three weeks: some kind of prank, or an old man being forgetful or busy or just not caring. Until the June auction, where both Leitner and his books are completely absent. The catalogue is much thinner without his contributions, and no-one talks about anything all night other than where he could be. If Jon genuinely thought this were some kind of publicity stunt it would be brilliant, but he doesn’t. He’s beginning to think that Leitner didn’t stand him up after all, that something has happened to him, and that it was right after last month’s auction. He shares this information with a few other sellers to coax information out of them in return, and by the end of the night every single person in London’s rare books trade knows that Jurgen Leitner vanished just before he could visit Magnus Books. In return he learns a little about the history of the rare and antique books business, the gradual culling of weak and unwary booksellers that led to the First United Kingdom Booksellers’ Congress on What the Fuck is Going On (so-called) in 1982. Since then they’ve had more or less a treaty with Leitner: he provided information on how not to get killed by his books, and they continued to buy them.

After the silent auction, when Elias is making the rounds with Jon to see which books they’ve won and for how much, Robinson—of Dekker and Robinson, the only person Elias considers genuinely dangerous, and perhaps not for the reasons he implied—approaches them. “I’d like to ask you to find something out for me,” she says. “You know I don’t ask _you_ for favors lightly. I’m willing to pay.”

“Everyone in this room would like to ask the same question,” says Elias pleasantly. “And you will notice that I am not telling them.”

“My question,” says Robinson, “is where she is keeping him, under what security measures. A much simpler piece of information, since I’ve done most of your job for you.”

Elias smiles. “Jon, why don’t you go and make sure the books get boxed up for us?”

“Because you’re trying to keep something from me, and I want to know what it is.”

“That wasn’t a request,” says Elias. Robinson laughs, a single sharp bark.

“Who is keeping him?” Jon asks, looking her directly in the eye.

“Mary Keay, of course. You won’t be telling anyone.” Jon is about to agree that no, he won’t, he’s very good at keeping secrets, when she grabs his hand and quickly draws something in permanent marker. “Now, please leave, or I’ll never get anything out of _him_.”

Jon looks down at his hand, where Robinson has scribbled an incredibly unpleasant face with fearful bulging eyes and a smile so wide it barely fits on its face. While he’s still trying to decipher the cartoon speech bubble coming from its mouth, Elias turns him around by the shoulder and he has to stumble away to keep his feet. It’s not worth going back at this point, so he goes and does what Elias told him to, squinting at his hand and trying to ignore the feeling that Gerard Keay is watching him. Eventually he makes it out to be _I know nothing_ , which is either an insult or some sort of… spell?

Another thing to think about is why Elias considered Robinson so dangerous that he didn’t want Jon to meet her. At this point it seems clear that it’s because she knows something he doesn’t want Jon to know. Whether that information is about Leitner or about Elias himself remains to be seen.

As soon as he gets home Jon emails her: _Ms. Robinson: Would you be willing to meet with me on Sunday the 8 th at a location of your choosing? I’d like to discuss your comments of earlier tonight. Thank you, Jonathan Sims._

Her reply comes in the morning.

 _Dear Mr. Sims:  
No_.

She doesn’t even have an email signature to soften it.

It puts him in a bad mood all day at work. He’s taken home fewer books than last month, fewer books than his first month here, and it makes him feel in some obscure way that he has failed as an acquisitions manager. And Robinson won’t even speak to him.

“Is something wrong?” Martin asks when he comes into the back room for the new stock.

“Leitner’s been kidnapped,” Jon says. _Tries_ to say. What he actually hears himself say is, “Leitner is missing,” in a voice he’s not sure is his own.

Martin whips around to look intently at him, and for a moment Jon is sure he’s noticed the false voice. But he just says, “Honestly it’s a bit of a surprise it took this long. Is there an investigation, or…?”

Jon considers mentioning that Elias seems to be in charge of it, but that might break his promise. He glances at his left hand, which is currently palm-down to hide the awful face. “We only found out last night,” he says, because at least this way he gets to choose which lie to tell. “But he’s been missing since just after the last monthly. You’ll recall he tried to visit here. I don’t _think_ that has anything to do with it, but…”

“Hmm,” says Martin, drumming his fingers on the metal shelf. “I’ll try and think if there’s anyone I could ask.”

“Elias,” says Jon, and is faintly surprised he was able to.

“Oh, no, er, he’s immune. I’ll come up with something, though.”

Jon doesn’t get the opportunity to ask what it means that Elias is _immune_ to questions, because Martin vanishes back into the front of the shop, and Jon’s only real option is to continue with his work. Mainly because Annie is sitting on his lap and he can’t get up.

 

There’s almost nothing online about Gertrude Robinson, not even a profile on Dekker and Robinson’s website; Jon actually considers asking her partner, since he’s at least spoken to the man once or twice, but he’s not quite that desperate yet. Instead he investigates Mary Keay, who doesn’t even _have_ a website. Nor is her shop listed on Google Maps. He has to dig out a phone book from 2011 to find an address for Pinhole Books, although thanks to Mike Crew he knew the general area. Why is everyone in rare and antique books so damned _weird_? Just because it’s survival first and money-making second doesn’t mean that every bookseller in London needs to be like this. It’s honestly exasperating.

Before he tries to visit he takes the time to prepare: the next time he meets another manager to trade books and gossip, he makes sure to inquire as to Pinhole’s specialties, what Keay is likely to be interested in. He gets a lot of amused looks, a few condescending warnings not to get in over his head, and eventually the information that she specializes in grimoires, bestiaries, and occult texts.

Then, because Pinhole Books has no email address he can divine, Jon calls the number in the phone book and offers the answerphone a few books on natural philosophy—“or anything else you can think of that we might have,” he adds. “And if you have any foreign histories I’d be happy to take them off your hands for a fair price.” He leaves a number for Keay to call back, if and when she feels like it, but what calls him back the next day is _not_ Mary Keay. It’s a deep, distorted voice that he thinks might be electronically generated, saying, “Sacrifice. Equilibrium. Reciprocity. Seven. Five. One.” Before he can even begin to parse that, whoever or whatever is on the other end of the line hangs up.

He spends most of his working hours puzzling over the message. A correspondence between the number and the word? He’s trying to see if it will work as some kind of gematria cipher when Tim coaxes him out to keep him company behind the counter—not because Tim needs to watch for customers; he can just listen for the bell, but he wants to “remind Jon that the outside exists, see, we’ve got windows and everything.”

He seems amused when Jon explains what he’s trying to decode. “I think it’s pretty obvious,” he says, and laughs at the furious look Jon gives him. “You give us your books, we’ll give you something in return. Also, come at 7:51.”

Jon hates himself.

But he does take the tube to Morden after work and walks to the address from the phone book. It’s above a vintage clothing shop that looks nearly abandoned, and he actually has to hunt around a bit before he finds the second door with the brass plaque reading PINHOLE BOOKS, SECOND FLOOR. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. He arrives at 7:46 and pretends to look at the dusty suits in the ground floor shop until he can knock at 7:51. He knocks, three times so he won’t see the words in front of his eyes.

He waits, slightly too nervous to knock again.

After perhaps two minutes he can hear several locks clicking through the door, and it opens a crack to reveal Gerard Keay’s single accusatory eye, looking out at him in a way that conveys both boredom and malice. “Oh,” he says. “So you came, did you.”

“You did, er, set the time,” says Jon, wishing he’d known the man _worked_ here.

“7:51, tomorrow morning.”

“Oh… but, but I’m here now, so—unless you’re busy, of course—may I come in?”

Gerard sighs, the door closes, and Jon can hear a chain sliding back before it opens again. He walks inside and the door closes after him: no way back now. He feels like a sheep going to slaughter. “One would almost think you didn’t _want_ to sell any books,” he says with a nervous laugh, before he can stop himself. Gerard looks at Jon over his shoulder as he begins to climb a steep flight of stairs, and Jon winces. He’s not normally prone to babbling. “I only mean, it was quite difficult to find your phone number, and if you keep the door locked all the time, and your appointment process is rather confusing…”

“ _You_ just can’t take a hint,” says Gerard, in the tone of a person who is absolutely thinking about murdering Jon.

Jon says nothing because there is nothing he really can say to that, is there? He just follows Gerard up the stairs, clutching his bag and trying to think how he can avoid being murdered. If the man tries to kill him in a normal way, by blunt force trauma or strangulation or with a gun, there’s not much he can do about it. But Gerard only leads him to a rather cozy office lined with bookshelves and gestures for him to sit down in a chair. Odds are looking better for _magical_ murder and therefore the possibility of self-defense. If only he can anticipate how Gerard is likely to attack… his gaze is drawn to a framed picture on the wall, an eye so soaked in tiny iconographic detail that he’s sure if he looks a little longer, a little closer, he’ll be able to decipher some kind of narrative…

“So, what have you got?” asks Gerard. Jon attempts to tear his eyes away from the painting, turning his head toward Gerard, but he can’t quite stop his eyes turning to track it. “Oh, honestly,” says Gerard, and waves his hand in front of Jon’s eyes. Jon flinches and looks around at him, embarrassed. “I said, what have you got?”

“Er, sorry.” Jon starts emptying his bag onto the desk. He’s brought five books for Keay to have a look at, but as Gerard reaches for them Jon’s hands hover uncertainly as if to defend them. “I… was hoping to speak to Mary in person?”

“Yeah?” says Gerard. “Stupid of you. Here’s a tip, don’t attract her attention. Anyway, I do acquisitions.”

“Oh. All right…”

He watches silently with sweating palms while Gerard inspects the books. In the low light he could swear the eyes tattooed on Gerard’s knuckles are swivelling to stay trained on him every time Gerard’s hands move to pick up another book or turn a page. It’s surely far too dim in here for him to actually be able to authenticate anything but maybe—maybe he’s something that doesn’t need light to see.

Something like Martin? he asks himself.

Well, no. Martin is—fine. He’s harmless.

Why did Elias tell him Gerard Keay is harmless?

“These two,” says Gerard, pushing forward a book of particularly upsetting Russian fairy tales and 1791 reprinting of a medieval bestiary. “Four thousand for them both.”

“The bestiary is worth £4000 on its own,” he objects, and then silently berates himself for saying no to a man who obviously would rather kill him.

“And another thousand for the fairy tales.”

“Yes, that sounds reasonable.”

He continues sweating as Gerard counts out £5000 in large bills from the drawer of the desk, and then pauses, still holding them. “You wanted to see some of our stock as well?”

What Jon really wants is to get out of here as soon as possible, but he hesitates too long and Gerard gets up, putting the money in the pocket of the calf-length black leather coat he is still wearing. “Wait here,” he says. And Jon has to, because he hasn’t closed the deal. He tries not to look at the painting. He turns his head to stare intently at the spines of the books, without really reading any of them. He can feel the painting looking at him.

He’s not sure how long it is, because there’s no clock in the room and he doesn’t quite dare move to pull out his phone. But eventually Gerard comes back with a single book and a single cup of tea in a saucer. He silently hands Jon the book, which is titled _A Complicated Man: the epic hero worldwide_. It was printed in 1987, but it seems like a fascinating book and Jon is quite happy to pay £40 for it. He tells Gerard this and reaches for the tea, but Gerard’s stare is so intent that he suddenly retracts his hand, afraid that it might be poisoned. He tries to cover it up by going for his wallet and taking out two £20 notes, which he slides gingerly across the desk. Gerard regards them and then stands and looks at Jon. Not at his _face_ , but at his _midsection_. “Er,” Jon says as Gerard leans across the desk, but he doesn’t get any further before in one quick motion Gerard’s hand snatches something from the pocket of his cardigan. He’s still looking down in alarm when Gerard drops the thing in his cup of tea and sits back down. Jon looks at him disbelievingly, and then looks into the cup. Inside is a doll’s head with horribly familiar bulging eyes and a wide grinning mouth, now melting and warping so that one of the eyes pops out of its socket with a wet _blup_ and floats to the top. He thinks he can hear it _whispering_ something indecipherable as the eye melts too and drips into the bottom of the cup with the rest of the flesh-colored liquid plastic.

“What was…” Jon begins, but his voice fails him. Gerard has put the £5000 down in front of him, picked up the two books, and is already walking toward the door.

“See you,” he says, without turning around, which rather makes it sound like a threat.

Jon takes his chance, changes his money for Gerard’s, and hurries toward the opposite door that leads to the stairs. He unlocks the door, can’t open it, begins to panic, and then unlocks another lock he hadn’t seen and makes it back out onto the street. It’s disorientatingly normal, bright and washed-out after the dark rooms inside Pinhole Books. He breathes a sigh of relief… and at that moment Gerard comes barrelling out the door, knocking him into the street.

As Jon picks himself up, dazed, he can hear Gerard being sick nearby. His first inane thought is to wonder whether Gerard drank the poisoned tea, doll’s head and all. “Er,” he says. Gerard looks up with vomit dripping down his chin and says,

“Get out.”

Jon flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-Typical Michaels: It Begins  
> a.k.a I'm going to name as many minor characters as possible some variation of Michael, to be faithful to the source material.


	3. Chapter 3

Gerard Keay isn’t at the July auction. That’s more of a surprise than Leitner’s continuing absence, since apparently he’s the acquisitions manager for Pinhole. The whole event seems a little lifeless to Jon, and everywhere there are knots of people talking quietly about all the things they’ve tried to find out what happened to Leitner. Jon glances at his left hand, which despite his scrubbing with alcohol still has the faded lines of the strange face on it.

Last Wednesday Martin caught sight of his hand and looked perhaps unduly alarmed. “What is this?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

“Er, Gertrude Robinson drew it,” he said without thinking, and was surprised to find no second voice telling a different story. “It was to stop me from saying anything about her conversation with Elias, but I suppose it’s stopped working now.”

“ _Gertrude_. Of course. These things don’t just _stop_ working, Jon,” Martin said, peering closer at it as if trying to read the speech bubble. “There’s technically no nonlethal way you can alter someone using the Powers. It’s just sort of, how fast it kills them.”

“She was trying to _kill_ me?”

“Well, no, normally you put something lethal on someone and expect them to neutralize it within a couple days. I think she assumed you were a lot more competent than you actually are,” he added apologetically. “Although with her you really never know. Anyway, you should probably scrub that off before it grows anything? Just to be safe? I don’t know how you neutralized it without noticing, but you don’t want it getting hold again.”

So he _could_ tell everyone here what happened to Leitner, more or less. But should he?

He thinks about it all night and eventually decides not to, largely because of the threat of Robinson’s wrath. And it seems like she’s taking steps to fix the problem, anyway, though Jon can’t begin to guess what they might be. Something that takes over a month?

What he’s learned so far in his investigations is a pittance of information consisting entirely of hearsay, apart from the very concrete fact that Gertrude Robinson is not above using potentially lethal curses on people who are inconvenient to her. He has come no closer to the root of all this: why was Leitner selling those books, and where did he get them? It’s a question Jon may not be able to answer unless he can speak to Leitner himself, but he simply doesn’t have the skills or resources to find anything out. He’ll try one more thing, and then he’ll have to change his approach.

After the auction has finished, while they’re gathering up the books they’ve won, Elias expresses his happiness that Jon has been networking. In fact he was just standing near a group of people listening to their conversation for half an hour, but they didn’t tell him to go _away_ , which he supposes is a good sign. Elias is very keen on networking, for some reason. Anyway, it’s put him in a good mood, so Jon ventures his question.

“Do you know how I might be able to talk to Jurgen Leitner?”

The smile slides off Elias’ face. “Jon, you have much more important things to worry about than this strange preoccupation with Leitner.”

“So you do know, and you’re not telling me.”

“Yes, Jon. I do know, and I’m not telling you, because I did not hire you to investigate Jurgen Leitner. I hired you for your expertise in historical printing and binding. It is not in my interest to put my resources into this foolish project of yours—nor is it in your interest, if you would only believe me.”

“Fine. Fine. Will you at least tell me _how_ you know?”

“If it were something you could replicate, absolutely not. But don’t worry. It isn’t.” He smiles and briefly squeezes Jon’s shoulder before slipping away through the crowd of booksellers. Jon stares after him in frustration, and then turns back to finish picking up his books alone.

 

That Wednesday he tries his alternate approach, and on Tim’s advice invites Sasha James for drinks.

“It’s not like you to want to go out,” she says when she meets him at one of about two pubs Jon knows of, thanks to Tim. “Did you get replaced with some kind of doppelganger?”

“Nearly,” mutters Jon under his breath, but luckily she doesn’t hear him. “Er, I mean, I wanted to ask you for a favor. Or rather, offer you a job.”

“All right, well, let’s not stand outside. You’re at least going to buy me a drink, right?”

“Oh, er, yes.”

She shepherds him inside and manages to get them a booth at the back of the pub, and only once they’ve got beers and fried fish will she let him start.

“Are you still a hacker?” Sasha starts laughing, and he gives her an impatient look that she seems to find even funnier. “I don’t know what the industry term is, all right? I just want to know if you still work for a detective, doing computer… stuff.”

“Yes, I do. And _you_ have someone you want us to follow? On the deep web, is it?”

He scowls and ignores that. She’s going to take the piss forever just because _one_ time, in grad school, he used the phrase ‘deep web.’ “Someone I want you to find. But the person who kidnapped him is… dangerous. I don’t know how dangerous. I want to make sure you know what you’re getting into, because I certainly didn’t.”

Sasha raises her eyebrows at him. “What _have_ you gotten into? Kidnappings? You haven’t become a spy, have you?”

“I’m being serious.”

“All right, then I am too. I need some context before I can decide if I want to take the risk.”

So he tells her everything, even what he hasn’t told the other booksellers for fear of Robinson’s retribution. She doesn’t tell him he’s delusional, even if she’s thinking it, which is a small mercy. She does ask if he can do some magic now, to prove it’s real.

“No!” he says. “Haven’t you been listening? It’s dangerous. The only safe way to use any one of the Powers is to cancel another one out. I _did_ tell you about how they’re deadly? Just checking.”

“Yeah, I guess you did. I don’t mean to doubt you, it’s just a bit hard to believe.”

“Please take this as seriously as you would if you did believe me. I can pay, and you have the right to stop at any time.”

“I’ll talk to Basira about it, but I think she’ll agree. We need the money, anyway. I’ll email you when I’ve got her answer, and then you can email me what you know, okay?”

He nods.

“Great! Now that’s settled, we can have a proper drink. How have you been, Jon? Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

 

He hears from her regarding the case much sooner than he expected. She texts him at work asking if she can call him now, and he agrees, since it’s not like he has to do any customer service.

“Did you know she was dead?” Sasha demands, instead of saying hello.

“She’s— _Mary Keay_? What do you mean she’s dead?”

“Try Googling her! It was literally the first result when Basira and I went to see what we could find out about her. D’you have your laptop on you? No, I’ll read you the article, it’s from yesterday. It’s titled WOMAN FOUND BRUTALLY MURDERED IN HOME, SON SUSPECTED. ‘On July 4th, neighbors began to complain about a smell coming from the open windows of Pinhole Books, an independent bookstore in Morden. Police found the shop unlocked and entered to find the body of Mary Keay in the upstairs rooms where she lived. The inquest reports that she died of a painkiller overdose about a week ago, but her wounds were inflicted on her while she was still alive. Keay’s skin was found hung on fishing wire strung around her office, written on in a language identified to be Sanskrit in permanent marker.’

“You can look it up if you want the rest, that should give you a pretty good idea. I haven’t gotten access to photos yet, and I’m honestly not sure I want to. Basira wants to study them for clues, though, and more power to her. I guess being ex-police gives you a stomach of steel. I just thought you’d want to know—do you still want us to…?”

“I don’t think her son did it,” says Jon. “He’s—terrifying, but I think… Oh, G-d, I think it happened while I was _there_. He left the room and he might have gone into her study, and half a minute later he rushed outside and was sick. He can’t have done it.”

“What the hell, Jon! Are you serious?”

“It was Gertrude Robinson,” he says grimly, “I’m sure of it. I’ve already seen the kinds of—well, _spells_ she does, and I know she knows Keay has—had Leitner. She’s got a motive and a method. The only problem is the police wouldn’t believe it.”

“I mean, I can see if we can collect any evidence… not from the shop, obviously, but if I can get any records… And of course we’ll still look for Leitner, if he doesn’t show up again soon. Maybe this Gertrude’s rescued him!”

“Maybe…” Jon murmurs. “Look, thank you for telling me. I should probably… I mean, you need to look into this. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Of course. Stay safe. I mean, don’t do anything stupid. Er. Stupider.”

“Good _bye_ , Sasha.”

“Bye, Jon.”

When he hangs up Martin is leaning around the doorway to stare at him. “Eavesdropping’s not polite, Martin,” he says snidely, but Martin ignores it. He just says,

“Is Mary Keay really dead?”

“Yes, she was murdered on… let me see, June 28th, apparently skinned alive before overdosing on painkillers. I think it’s pretty clear that…” He pauses as Martin ducks back into the front of the shop, irritated that the man won’t listen to even the most sensational news if it’s coming from Jon. “It’s pretty clear that someone was doing ritual magic!” he calls.

“The question is who,” Martin calls back.

Jon gives up on yelling and goes to stand in the doorway. Martin is on his phone, obviously reading the article. “How is that even a question? It was Robinson.”

“Assuming makes an ass of you and me,” Martin mumbles, not looking up from his phone. Jon vaguely wants to strangle him for being so persistently—uncool, or something, as Jon’s primary mentor in magic and the dangerous trade of antique books. Magicians, he feels, should at least have an air of romantic solitude or a wasting sickness or something. Martin is cheerful, sociable, and laughs nervously at his own unfunny jokes. “Damn, I was hoping there’d be pictures. It’s hard to tell exactly what the point was without seeing it.”

“You can read Sanskrit, can you?”

“Yeah, as long as we have books in it. I have a kind of permanent stash of the more common ones. Funny enough, the Sanskrit one’s actually a Leitner, but all it does is make little bones. The poetry’s lovely, though.”

Jon doesn’t tell him that there is no such thing as a harmless Leitner, because if anyone knows whether that’s true it would be Martin. He just scowls and goes to look for Annie in the front window of the shop, where she likes to watch the people walking by outside. He could really use someone who won’t tell him he’s wrong right now.

It seems like while he’s reading in the window with Annie on his lap more people come into the shop than normal. A few come over to see if he’ll let them pet Annie (one of whom is shocked to find he’s not a mannequin), and she hops up onto his knees to collect their adoration before settling down into his lap again. At least he’s _someone’s_ favorite. At least he’s someone’s favorite while Martin is standing up.

The window is a surprisingly pleasant place to read, and he feels like the natural light is doing him good somehow, so after lunch he goes back to it. It also helps him keep an eye on who comes into the shop, and according to Tim he’s attracting customers by ‘modelling the bookish lifestyle’ (which Tim informs him is usually Mike Crew’s job). Around three someone comes into the shop wanting to sell a book, so he has to gently lift Annie off his lap and go talk to the man. She just jumps onto his shoulder as he’s leaving anyway.

The man isn’t at all surprised to find a cat perched on the acquisition manager’s shoulder. He introduces himself as Michael, offers a handshake, and gives the book to Jon to examine. Annie oozes down his shoulder and tries to put her paw on it as he opens it to reveal the bookplate.

EX LIBRIS, it says, and below that a stylized drawing of an old-fashioned key.

It’s not the same font as Leitner’s bookplate, not the same size or stamped in the same color. But it still makes him feel uneasy. He swats aside Annie’s paw and opens it to the title page: the book is called _The Physics and Chemistry of Color: the fifteen causes of color_. It is not bound like a textbook, though, and its soft leather cover has no title on it.

“I’m not sure this is really our specialty,” Jon says uncertainly, flipping through to [a page of color plates.](https://i.imgur.com/yN1SajI.png) One is the vague form of a hand, outlined in a dark, oily rainbow. The next a series of ever more warped reflections of something he can’t identify. The next a bright, but strangely organic, cracked mosaic. None of them are captioned. “We do more _historical_ natural sciences,” he says, and flips back to the beginning to find the publishing information. “This is from 1983, so it’s more modern than what we sell.”

“So you don’t want it?” says Michael, looking disappointed. “I’m not sure who I _can_ sell science books to. Do you know anyone with a science bookstore?”

“Er, no, I haven’t heard of one. But may I ask why you’re only selling this one?”

He clicks on the tape recorder sitting on the table; Michael doesn’t seem to notice. “I sold all my other ones to other shops, but they wouldn’t take this one. It just bothers me to not get anything for it, you know? It’s the principle. This might still be a rare printing?”

“I can look for it,” says Jon, who doesn’t think it’s rare. He opens his laptop. “Do you remember where you got it?”

“Found it in my dad’s attic after he passed. You have to clean stuff out, you know?”

“Mmm,” says Jon, barely half-listening. “Well, it isn’t rare at all. If you really want to sell to Magnus I can’t offer you more than £30 for it.”

“That’s enough,” says Michael quickly. “I just want to get _something_ for it.”

Money changes hands and Daniel leaves £30 richer. Jon goes back to the window seat to skim the table of contents. It’s all gibberish to him, more or less, something about photons and electrons that he couldn’t begin to understand. He’s about to close it when Annie somehow wriggles out of the space between his arm and the window (she didn’t follow him to the front…?) and onto the book, where she sits, purring loudly.

“Get off, Annie.” He pushes her and tips the book forward to slide her off, but she hooks her claws into his sweater and purrs more loudly. “No, come on, I know you like to be part of what I’m doing, but I’m actually done with this.” He starts unhooking her claws from his sweater but as soon as he starts on the second paw she pushes back in with the first one, pricking his chest. “Perhaps I _was_ going to buy you some fish tomorrow because you’re so good for business,” he tells her. “But I’m not any more.”

Annie meows plaintively, but ruins the effect by sinking all four sets of claws into his chest.

He winces and says, “Fine. Ruin my sweater. I never liked it anyway.” He stands up and takes the book out from under her to snap it shut, leaving her hanging by all four feet from his front. She attempts to free one foot but can’t quite manage.

“I can hear you over there talking to the cat, you know,” calls Tim from the other side of the shelves. “What has she—oh my G-d!” Anything else he was going to say is lost in helpless laughter when he sees Jon scowling with a cat hanging off his front, still trying to get one of her feet free. He does, _eventually_ , help disentangle her.

And when she’s finally free she immediately jumps out of Tim’s arms to stand on the book that Jon has put down, staring expectantly at Jon.

“She’s been like this since I bought it,” he tells Tim. “It’s almost like she’s trying to say something, but damned if I know what.”

“You reckon she’s a spooky cat?” asks Tim, tickling her under the chin. “Are you spooky, Annie?”

Annie trills.

“Think she’s spooky, Jon. She’s telling you this is a spooky book.”

“It’s not a Leitner, though. The bookplate is different.”

“Yeah, I know, that was a joke. You need to learn to identify them. Let’s have a look at that, eh, Annie?” He scoots her off the book and opens it to the cover. “Well, this is obviously a key book, from the key library. Says so right there. Case closed. If you’re so worried, have Martin look at it tomorrow.”

“From the key library,” Jon mutters. Then, “Yes, yes, I think I will. Guard it until then, will you, Annie?”

Annie sits down on all four of her paws, squints her eyes shut so that she looks like nothing more than a black hole, and purrs.

 

“It _is_ a Leitner,” says Martin, frowning at it. “Can you check against the database of his auction items? It might be one from… I dunno, before he had a brand?”

But when Jon checks, it isn’t listed.

“I guess the alternative is that whoever his literary executor is they’re selling his backlog?”

“The man who sold this to me said he found it in his father’s attic.”

“Well, I don’t know, then! All I know is that it needs to be neutralized. How would you do this one?”

“Natural sciences,” mutters Jon. “Beholding, maybe. Or, light, distortion, the Spiral? I guess I’d use the Stranger, that’s a pretty good bet against  both of them.”

“I don’t mean to alarm you,” says Martin cheerfully, which of course is _instantly_ alarming, “but I’m pretty sure this one’s got all of them. Look, it’s even called _The fifteen causes of color_.”

“There are only fourteen Powers…”

“Yes, that’s the other alarming thing. At best, whoever wrote this just splits them up a bit differently. At worst, it’s got one we’ve never heard of and therefore can’t be sure of neutralizing. Let’s start, shall we?”

Neutralization takes the entire morning and four different Powers. First the Stranger, which Jon was actually right in naming as a good counter for the obvious primary Powers: as the local expert in bookbinding, he has to remove the binding and painstakingly turn every other page upside-down, so it’s just uncanny enough to not quite count as a book. While he’s doing this, Martin takes care of the other three. The Web is always a safe bet for restraint, so Martin vanishes for a while to collect cobwebs from odd corners of the shop (Annie doesn’t touch the spiders, he tells Jon proudly, because she knows better). He invokes the End by sticking an expiration sticker for 2019 on it. And, after a couple of hours of frowning thoughtfully at Jon’s ongoing work and scribbling diagrams on scrap paper, he vanishes again and returns with a small bag of dirt, which he tapes into the back cover when the rebinding is done.

Jon’s back aches from bending over the book and he has a headache from squinting at it, so he takes a walk and a long lunch. When he returns the shift has changed but Martin is still hanging around to explain _The Physics and Chemistry of Color_ to Tim. Jon appropriates it and photographs the bookplate so he can spend the afternoon emailing other booksellers to see if any of them recognize it. Annie condenses into his lap, purring in apparent satisfaction.

He looks down at her and scratches between her ears. “You knew, didn’t you? You can sense them. You’re a very clever cat, but I think Tim was right that you’re a bit spooky.”

Annie meows softly, in what he chooses to interpret as agreement.

 

He gets his first reply that evening, from Michelle Peterson of Tapestry Antiques. _We’ve had one too_ , she writes. _It was obviously of the Vast and the End. I’ve noticed that in the last five years or so Leitner’s books have been more and more multi-Power, which is a bit concerning. Also, has no-one added you to the listserv yet? There are a few other people already talking about it there. Here you go_.

Jon could not ask for a more engaging study than the conversation currently happening on the listserv, and he only mourns that there is no archive of past emails. If there were, he probably wouldn’t sleep at all. Instead he finally sleeps, uneasily, at around three.

There are a few things everyone agrees on. First, every key book has been brought by a different person, most of whom have said that none of the other book shops would buy it. Second, no-one on the listserv has refused to buy one of them. Third, they seem functionally identical to Leitner’s books, and every one of them has at least two Powers. By the end of the week the consensus is that someone is running a campaign to distribute Keys but doesn’t want anyone to know who they are.

Jon finds this very puzzling, because if Mary Keay hadn’t just died it would be obvious who to blame (though there is an email thread on the listserv dedicated to conspiracy theories about how she _isn’t_ dead, which Jon pays no attention to). The suspicion falls next on Gerard and third on Robinson. Jon tries to put his head together with Tim, but Tim suggests that maybe Mary Keay is selling books from beyond the grave and they get into a bit of a row about how Tim refuses to ever take anything seriously.

Still sulking (though he wouldn’t admit it), Jon calls Sasha that night to see if she’s found anything.

“Basira’s been staking out Pinhole Books,” she says, sounding rather sleepy. “It looks like the police have cleaned it up by now, but they’re not getting much business. It’s mostly the son, Gerard, going in and out. I guess he bailed himself out, because they’re still waiting for the trial. Whenever he goes somewhere besides the corner store he’s somehow managing to lose Basira, which is a bit suspicious. I’ve been going through various kinds of records, though I haven’t got anything very useful yet. Auction records say she’d been buying books for quite a long time. Business permits say she bought the building in 1978, though given her background I’m not sure where she got the money. Hospital records say Gerard has no recorded father, though I don’t suppose that’s much of a surprise. From the rumors, she seems the kind of woman who’d have eaten him.”

“So you haven’t seen any sign they’re keeping Leitner in the shop?”

“No, and I don’t think Gerard is buying enough groceries for two people. Wherever Leitner is, it’s not there.”

“Well, how’s he giving Basira the slip?” asks Jon, a bit too sharply in his frustration.

“Have you ever tried to tail someone without them noticing? No? Then keep your comments to yourself. Basira’s good at her job, Jon. And this kind of a case isn’t going to get resolved in a week. We’re getting there, so be patient.”

“It’s not one of my strong suits,” Jon mutters.

“I know. So thanks for being as patient as you have been.”

“I just feel like… I’m missing something crucial. There’s something going on that’s hidden from me, and I _need_ to know what it is. I can’t… I can’t explain it. It’s eating at me.”

“Jon,” says Sasha, very gently. “You’re doing all you can. No-one would expect you to solve this on your own. You’ve been in this business for, what, a couple of months? Of course you’re still putting the pieces together.”

 

The next week he receives unexpected confirmation that he’s doing better than he thought. Who was it who said that you can always tell you’re onto something if people want you dead?

Gertrude Robinson herself visits the shop on Wednesday afternoon, and Jon can’t quite convince himself that her arriving after Martin’s shift is a coincidence. Not that he sees Martin as a _protector_ of any sort—but, well, he has to admit to himself that he’d rather not take her on with only his own fledgeling powers of magic.

He hears the bell over the door ring and Tim says, “Oh, hey, Gertrude. He’s in the back.” A moment before she emerges from the doorway, Annie lands on Jon’s shoulder and curls watchfully around his neck.

“Ah, good,” says Robinson. “I wanted to speak with you, Jonathan.”

He feels about twelve years old again, listening to one of his teachers telling his grandmother that his _schoolwork_ isn’t the problem. No-one has called him Jonathan since she died. “About what,” he mutters, unable to muster anything louder.

“Your… investigation. It has the potential to be rather inconvenient for both Mary and myself.”

“She’s… alive, then,” says Jon, feeling slow. “You and her are—but I thought…”

“It’s clear that you didn’t,” says Robinson. She is still standing above him in the doorway. He wants to be standing, because he _would_ be taller than her, but he can’t quite move. “You look too much and think too little, very like your employer. But it’s more than enough to get you in trouble.”

“I can’t just stop—look, if you _tell_ me what’s going on, I won’t have to investigate. I can stay out of your business. I just want to _know_.”

“It never stops there. This is your first warning.” She picks up a book from the stack on the cart and for a moment Jon thinks she’s going to rip out a handful of pages or burn it, but instead she walks toward Jon and holds it above his head, open like the peak of a tent. Annie growls and seems about to leap at her, when suddenly she drops the book and it falls directly onto Jon’s face, blacking out his vision.

He is looking down at his own hands as he knits—no, his hands aren’t so translucent, so worn with age, and he doesn’t even know how to knit. Then he is looking at nothing but darkness.

He can’t move.

He can’t move and he can’t _see_.

He can’t move or see and he’s only distantly aware of his body, just aware enough to realize that he’s having difficulty breathing. It feels like he’s pressed between two stone walls, barely far enough apart to fit his ribcage until it tries to expand. His head is still tilted up but he can’t see anything. It’s hot and close, like he’s running out of air. He tries to call for help, but he can’t make any sound louder than a panicked wheeze.

Something hot is wrapped around his neck. Hot and soft. It’s in his mouth now, suffocating him, whacking him gently over the eye, meowing…

The darkness ends as Annie leaps off his face and down onto the table. He’s been sitting here the whole time. There were no stone walls. There was no knitting, and now no Gertrude Robinson. Just—just a cat, now meowing insistently at him. He reaches out to pet her but his hand trembles so violently that he lets it fall onto his lap, weakly clenched into a fist. What the _hell_ was that?

“Hey, Jon, have you seen that copy of _1984_ we got in yesterday with the rest of th—Hello? Earth to Jon?”

With some effort, Jon manages to look up at Tim, taking deep, shuddering breaths just to prove to himself that he can.

“What _happened_ to you?”

“Gertrude Robinson happened. And you let her in.”

“Jon, what? I’ve never met Gertrude Robinson. All I know about her is Elias thinks she’s disreputable or something. And I think you said she was going to, er, rescue Leitner from the clutches of another bookseller?”

“You greeted her by name and told her where to find me,” Jon snarls. He begins to get to his feet, but falls back into his chair when Annie jumps on his shoulder unexpectedly. Everyone is a traitor today.

“What, just now? I think I’d remember that.” He pauses. “Hey… why do you look like there’s a ghost stood directly behind me?”

“ _Would_ you remember?” Jon says hoarsely. “If Gertrude Robinson, who can use magic and has already cursed me to silence, came into the shop, would you remember?”

After a moment of consideration Tim says, “Well, fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to say that the actual main difference of this AU vs canon is that here Jon literally cannot do everything on his own; the logistics of the world don't allow it. Oh, he'll still try, of course.
> 
> Fun fact: _The Physics And Chemistry of Color: the fifteen causes of color_ is a real actual book I own, and the photos I linked are from it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops sorry I keep updating really late "but technically still on sunday" I JUST got back from a seder, let's go, jonathan sims is gay as hell for forbidden knowledge

“Where’s Jon Sims?”

“Not fooling me like that again!” says Tim’s voice from out front. “That really depends on who wants to know.”

“I mean, he’s in the back, right? Jon? It’s Basira.”

Jon hastily marks his place in his book and emerges from the back. “It’s fine, Tim, this is Sasha’s partner. I asked her to come in.”

Basira is standing with her arms folded, looking unimpressed. She jerks her head at Tim and says, “You’ve got some overprotective employees.”

“We’re coworkers,” says Jon, for the sake of Tim’s dignity. “And, er, the last time he told someone where I was she cursed me.”

“All right, reasonable. Can I talk in front of him?”

Jon nods.

“Right. So you’re the magic man. What do we do about Gerard’s disappearing act?”

Jon has been racking his brains for days on how the disappearing act might _work_ , because being invisible is very much not the provenance of Beholding, Gerard’s patron. But perhaps he has a secondary affiliation that would allow him to avoid or lie to other people. He gets his crumpled efficacy chart out of his pocket and spreads it on the counter, circling a few symbols in pencil. “I think the best bet is to try to trap him into going via a mundane route. Magical manipulation.”

“Sounds illegal,” says Basira, and Tim makes a noise of agreement.

That brings Jon up short.

“I’m not saying we can’t _do_ it. Just want to make sure there’s not going to be any evidence.”

“Hey, are we going to do crimes,” says Tim. “Are we criminals? I feel like this is going to end in someone getting murdered.”

“I really don’t think there’s a law against doing magic to force someone to let you tail them,” says Jon. “Maybe in the 1700s when there were still witchcraft laws, but not now.”

“Great, no problem then. So how do we _do_ it?”

As far as Jon understands it, there’s no list of spells anywhere. He’s never seen Martin repeat a method of neutralization, and without Martin’s expertise (he probably wouldn’t be willing to help Jon stalk a possible murderer) it seems like Jon is going to have to make it up as he goes along, every time. Ideally he would be  able to come up with something fast enough that Basira and Tim wouldn’t be staring skeptically at him, but here they are.

“Er, the only way I really know is to try and get some spiderwebs on him. Maybe if there were some way we could get him to leave a trail of them?”

 

And that’s how Jon comes to be in Basira’s old car, which does smell like she’s been living in it, crammed into the back seat with Tim. He and Sasha both wanted to come, as if this is some sort of adventure and not something so serious Jon feels slightly ill. If Gerard catches them at it, they’re all in danger. Right now they’re just banking on him not being awake, as it’s three in the morning, over an hour after all the lights have gone off inside Pinhole Books.

“So, Jon, I want to know something,” said Sasha, when she lost at Tetris on her phone a few hours ago. “Gertrude threatened to kill you if you didn’t stop going after Mary Keay, right? Are you just not worried about that?”

Of course he’s worried. He’s far more worried about her finding out than he is about Gerard finding out. But he has to know—no-one understands, he _has to know_. And he’s taken precautions, anyway, to confuse anyone following _them_. There’s a long, jagged spiral taped under the roof of the car to confuse any eyes that might be watching. That could be a full spell, anyway. It might do something.

Jon shuts down the part of his brain with doubts, rather unsuccessfully, takes the spool of cobweb and gets out of the car. He spends much too long crouched on the step in front of the shop, carefully tacking down the cobweb at every corner so Gerard is sure to step on some part of it. As he does so he mutters what could be a spell or a sort of prayer: “Slow him down and leave a trail. Trap him into showing us the way.”

He tries not to imagine the thread unspooling in _front_ of Gerard, like Ariadne’s string leading him to the Minotaur’s door so he can knock. Perhaps if he’d looked harder, twenty years ago, he would have seen the strings pulling that boy in…

But it’s useless to think about that. It’s not going to happen. The fact that Martin said there’s no nonlethal way to curse someone? Means nothing.

He hurries back to the car.

As hard as he tries to be watchful, it’s very late. He starts dozing without really noticing, and has unpleasant dreams that he doesn’t remember when he wakes. He doesn’t remember much of anything, actually. Why is he in a car? Why is it driving? He wonders briefly if he’s been kidnapped, but his panic wakes him up enough that he recognizes Tim, slumped against the other window and snoring.

“Is he moving?” Jon mumbles.

“Yeah,” says Basira. “We’ve been following him for about five minutes. Funny thing, I can see the trail from here.”

“It should be safe to follow him directly,” says Jon, rubbing his eyes and trying to sit up straight.

“That’s good, because we’re going to have to. Can’t drive through an alley.”

Jon is out the door before Basira has even properly parked, running after the glistening thread that follows in Gerard’s footsteps. He catches up quickly because Gerard is walking. Something about his quality of movement makes horror prickle up Jon’s spine. He very nearly looks like a normal human walking, but something about his gait is a little too stiff, a little too perfectly measured. Jon stops, leaning on his knees to try to get his breath back, and calls out, “Gerard?”

Gerard doesn’t respond. He can hear footsteps coming up behind him, and for one moment is terrified before he spins around to find Basira and Sasha jogging to catch up.

“There’s something wrong,” Jon tells them, forcing his legs to start moving again as Gerard disappears around the corner. “Dammit.”

He rounds the corner barely in time to find Gerard walking up the steps of one of the row houses, and breaks into a dead sprint. It’s exactly, exactly like last time, he shouldn’t have _thought_ about it, _he did this_ —

KNOCK, KNOCK.

He tackles Gerard off the front step and into a bush just as the door cracks open. He has only a moment to feel relieved before he realizes something is gripping his ankle, pulling him back up over the sharp edge of the cement step. He’s going to die. He’s going to die here because of his own stupid mistake, and there’s nothing he can do, and this was _always how it was going to end_ , because he never really escaped its web at all.

Footsteps pound behind him and there’s an awful wet crunch. The grip on his ankle stops pulling. Something screams, and the door slams.

“What the fuck,” says Gerard, through a mouthful of leaves, “is wrong with you people?”

“I don’t think your spell worked!” says Basira. “What was that thing?”

Jon gets to his feet trembling; when he looks down he can see that something thin and black is still locked onto his leg, but it’s been cut off or crushed about a foot from the—claw on the end. He doesn’t feel up to climbing onto the step, so he just sits on the side of it and watches Sasha help Gerard extricate himself from the bush. “I just wanted to know where you were going,” he mutters.

“And that worked out _so_ well for you,” says Gerard contemptuously. “You don’t know the first thing about the Powers. They don’t work _for_ any of us. They work through us. Somehow you didn’t _actually_ get me killed, which was really the lowest bar you could’ve gone for.”

Someone’s phone starts ringing, and the three of them (minus Gerard) all check their pockets until it’s found to be Sasha’s. “Tim?” she says. Jon can hear his plaintive tone through the speakers, but not make out any of the words. “If you just go through the alley and around the corner you’ll see us. We, er, found him. So that’s… good.” Another pause. “Okay, yeah, see you soon.” She looks at Gerard and then away, embarrassed. “We left him asleep in the car.”

“How many people did you hire to tail me?” Gerard says. “Should I expect more? Never mind, don’t answer that. You lot are like a circus. Maybe marginally less dangerous.”

“Circuses aren’t dangerous,” says Basira, checking over her shoulder.

“I dunno what circuses _you’ve_ been going to,” mutters Gerard. “Anyway, what do you want? You want to know where I was going? To the park, to have a fucking smoke in peace. I’m not _in league_ with my mother. I’ve worked hard to have no idea where she is.”

“Could you, er, work slightly less hard and tell us?” Jon ventures.

Gerard makes eye contact and holds it, and Jon finds he can’t look away. “Hm,” he says. Then, slightly surprised, “Oh.” When he finally looks away Jon sags, feeling like the inside of his skull has been scraped with a wire brush. “Yeah, I can tell you. You’re on your own for what you do when you find her, though. Most likely die, but I guess it’s none of my business. Be a miracle if you could get rid of her. She’s taken control of a Leitner connected to the End. Makes people into ghosts, or something like it, so I’ll let you figure out what she’s done with Leitner. She’s, eh, in the Epsom police station, wherever they keep the evidence, but knowing her she’s not likely to stay there much longer. That all you wanted?”

“Hey, guys!” Tim shouts from the corner, and they all turn to look. “What’d I miss? I thought you said you found him?”

“We did—” Sasha starts, but when they turn back to look Gerard is gone. “Well, he _was_ here.”

“I can’t believe I missed everything because you three wouldn’t wake me up! Did you at least find out where he was going?”

“Nah, one better,” says Basira. “We found out where Mary Keay is. Only problem is, she’s in the evidence locker at the Epsom police station.”

“Could you…?”

“No, I don’t exactly have contacts at Epsom. I wasn’t stationed anywhere near there. It really looks like we’re just going to have to break in.”

“And we have a time limit,” says Jon grimly, “but we don’t know what it is.”

“Amazing,” says Tim. “Also, what the hell is on your leg?”

 

In the end, they have to saw it off because the claw won’t open. Jon has bruises around his ankle for nearly a month, although frankly by that point they’re the least of his worries.

 

Police stations are never actually empty. Breaking into one is going to take serious magic in addition to what’s needed to neutralize Mary Keay, and Jon can no longer pretend that he’s good enough to accomplish that. He’s going to have to ask Martin.

“Why do you need that?” Martin asks cautiously. “It’s not so much that you want to break into an occupied building without getting caught—I mean, that is really suspicious, but the fact that you’re asking me this at the same time you’re asking for tips on neutralizing End artifacts, that’s _really_ suspicious. What on earth have you gotten yourself into? This isn’t Dead Sun stuff, is it?”

“No, I—what’s Dead Sun?”

“Never mind. What _are_ you doing, then?”

“I’m afraid you might not help me if I tell you.”

“You’re really not making me want to help you now!”

“We need a chance at defeating Mary Keay.”

Martin looks thoughtful, and maybe the tiniest bit smug at being right. “Ah, I knew she wasn’t dead.”

“Oh, er, no, she is. That’s what the End thing is about. Her book is in a police station. So really it’s not as, er, illicit as it sounds.”

“Breaking into a police station to kill someone is pretty illicit,” says Martin, but the next moment he just sighs tiredly. “Look, I should come with you. Not that I want to, but you’re going to do it even if I don’t, and you’ll probably get killed or arrested or something without me. Who else were you going to bring? You said _we_.”

“Tim… and some detectives I hired.”

“Jon! You can’t put people in danger like that if they don’t know how to protect themselves!”

Jon doesn’t point out that that’s more or less what Martin did to him. It isn’t worth it to get into another argument, especially one that might end in Martin trying to bar him from going. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll tell them _Martin said so_.” He takes his phone out to text Sasha, feeling like a sulking teenager.

“I know you don’t like it,” says Martin quietly. “So thanks for making this easy on me.”

Jon ignores him.

 

Because Mary might decide to leave at any time, they have to go that very night. Martin looks conspicuously nervous in his dark coat, fidgeting with ritual components in the pockets. “Just make _sure_ we remember to cancel this one once we’ve got back to the tube station,” he says for the fourth time. “Otherwise we might not make it home at all.”

“Yes, yes,” says Jon. “Is it time?”

Martin sighs. “Just here. Remember, _one_ sentence. If you read any more than that it’s a lot more dangerous.”

“I know, Martin.”

Martin opens the pamphlet and looks down at it, and Jon is alone. He may have been alone all night, he’s not quite sure—why is there a folded paper in his hand?

Oh. Yes. It’s time to disappear. He opens it and reads the very first sentence. _Although many people have wished to disappear at one time or another, we must question ourselves: how do we know whether we really mean it?_ It takes a great effort of will not to read any further. How _do_ people know whether they mean it? Jon has wished to disappear once or twice in his life, but was it sincere? Maybe two sentences would be more effective than one anyway…

The pamphlet is no longer in his hand. Did he drop it? He looks around for it on the ground until he finds it replaced with a scrap of notebook paper, where in neat round handwriting are the words, _Ready to go in?_

Right. Right. Martin is here as much as Jon is. He takes a deep breath and walks toward the police station. The lights are on, but no-one seems to be inside. Or maybe there are faint shadows there, moving more quickly than any person should, flickering back and forth through the lobby like the things he sees in the corners of his eyes when he hasn’t slept in over a day. He checks the station diagram Basira made and moves toward the door into the back. When he tries the door to evidence it’s locked, but a moment later the lock clicks and the door seems to have been open for a while.

Shaking his head to clear it, he goes inside. There are drawers lining the walls, arranged by date, and it doesn’t take too long to find the one containing a leatherbound book with the ragged untrimmed edges of parchment visible inside the plastic bag. He picks it up and puts it in his satchel, and he walks back out of the police station without ever having encountered anyone. It was _alarmingly_ easy. All he has to do now is make sure he meets Martin at the tube station despite not being able to perceive him in any way. And if the effect strengthens over time, it’s possible that Martin will stop being able to perceive him, too…

He waits in front of the Oyster card pay kiosks for what feels like ten minutes in increasing anxiety before he realizes he’s holding the other book. He holds it up and stares at it, wondering how long he’s had it. Martin has stuck a note on the relevant page, with instructions in case he forgot. He reads.

“Oh, thank goodness!” says Martin. “I actually couldn’t see you right at the end there, and it took you a while to notice the book. You really didn’t have to come, you know. This would have been so much safer if it was only me.”

“Let’s just go.”

By silent agreement they go back to the shop for the neutralization, though it’s long since closed. Annie seems very excited to see (smell?) the book—unlike Jon, who feels faintly sick when he opens it and realizes that every page is human skin. Some of them haven’t been very well prepared and still have hair.

“What effect does it have on Keay when we neutralize the book?” Martin has explained it to him several times, but never quite managed to elucidate his point.

“Well, it will diminish her powers in proportion to how it diminishes the book’s powers—its passive ones, that is, Leitners can still be used after they’ve been neutralized, and we haven’t done rigorous tests or anything but I _think_ —”

“Will she still be dangerous?”

“That depends on how much of her power is…” Martin hunches, embarrassed, into his shoulders. “Well, I guess I don’t know. Not for sure. But neutralizing the book will help at least a little.”

“Wonderful,” mutters Jon. He’s reluctantly agreed that Martin should do this one because they really cannot afford to bunk it up, so he’s watching as Martin scorches the words IT IS NOT ETERNAL into the back cover with a lens taped onto a handheld laser. He’s most of the way done when he sends Jon out back for a pound or two of dirt, saying distractedly, “I want to do three just to be certain.”

He didn’t have the decency to offer a spade, so Jon has to dig with his bare hands. He dislikes the feeling of dirt getting under his fingernails, but he tries to finish as quickly as he can. He walks back inside already craning his neck to try and see what the second neutralization is, but as soon as he crosses the threshold he can tell something is strange. The air is cold and still, and smells strangely musty, and the light is off. Maybe Martin is doing something that can only be done by candlelight.

“Martin,” he calls softly. There’s no reply. “Should I be quiet…?”

“No need. You’ve already woken me up.”

That’s not Martin. He stops in his tracks and peers around the corner. A bald old woman, covered head to toe in writing he can’t make out, is standing by the book cart behind the table. It takes a moment to find Martin slumped on the floor, apparently unconscious.

She puts down the book she was examining. “Now, who are you, dear? This young man seems to be Martin, but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“W-w-why should I tell you my name?” He tries not to look around the room for weapons too obviously, but the only blunt objects are books, the stapler, and his bag of dirt. His binding knife, though, if he were a little closer…

“It’s only polite. I’m Mary, by the way. Lovely to meet you.”

 “Mary _Keay_ ,” he says, just to make sure.

“Yes, that’s me. Oh, I have it! You must be Jonathan Sims. I heard you’ve been looking for me. Now, what is it you wanted?”

“Wh… uh, do you know where Jurgen Leitner is?”

“Safe and sound,” she says, smiling broadly as she pats the book beside her. “Did you want to talk to him?”

“I have a lot of questions for him.” Jon steps forward into the room, emboldened by her startling lack of hostility. “And for you.” Maybe, like her son, she’ll just answer his questions and he can be on his way. Maybe there’s no reason…

His eyes drift to Martin’s motionless body again.

“You really are one of Elias’ lot, aren’t you? Questions before and above anything else. I don’t think you’re going to be very useful, though. I think it would be better to kill you.” She says it in the same friendly tone she says everything else, so that he doesn’t register what she means until she’s walking toward him. Her bare feet make no noise on the floor.

He backs away until his shoulder hits the corner of the wall, and drops the bag. She doesn’t even have a weapon, but she probably doesn’t need one. “Er, no, no, I can be very useful. I’m, er, quite a good researcher, and…” She laughs, and he trails into silence, somehow ashamed.

“You wouldn’t happen to know Gertrude, would you? You seem like her type.”

“We’ve only spoken a couple of times,” he stammers. Gertrude’s _type_? No, focus—maybe he can lead Mary outside and then… what? Leave her to turn back and kill Martin in his place? “The last time we spoke she threatened to kill me too, actually,” he adds, as an item of interest. Can he keep her talking? Until what? “She’s very protective of you.”

“Protective? Oh, that’s sweet of you to say. I’m sure she only wanted to kill me herself. I’d do the same for her.”

“S-so you, er, have a relationship?” he asks desperately. “You’re sort of, sort of rivals?”

She’s smaller than him, but she seems bigger as she comes into arms’ reach. She seems to fill his field of vision, so that he can’t even see anything else. “I suppose you could say that. We used to be friends, you know, but Gertrude never played well with others. Oh, she might seem to, but she’s good at seeming. A spider in a—”

She stops, and for a moment Jon isn’t sure why. Until he sees the flames licking at her back, rising from her shoulders like soft yellow feathers. “Gertrude,” she whispers. Then she whirls around and shrieks: “GERTRUDE! If you’re going to kill me you’d better not do it without showing your face!”

Whatever spell she had over Jon is broken, and he can see the room behind her once again. Gertrude Robinson materializes from the shadows, holding the skin book up by one cover as the pages blacken and crumple. It smells vile. She nods with cool professionalism, as if they’ve met by chance at an auction. “Mary.”

“I suppose you’ve been waiting for your chance,” says Mary, taking a few more steps toward her. The flames have risen so high from her shoulders that Jon is afraid they might scorch the ceiling. “You can’t have been watching me, though. I’m too well protected, and I never read that damned book of yours.”

“No, but _he_ did.”

“Hm!” says Mary. But then her voice softens as she steps in front of Gertrude, her hands spread wide in a placating gesture. “You don’t need to kill me at all. You have my book, so isn’t it more natural for us to work together?” She tilts her head—and then suddenly lunges for the book. Gertrude kicks her in the chest as if she was expecting this, and Mary crumbles like dry old paper.

“That won’t work on me any more,” Gertrude murmurs, staring down into the smoldering ash on the floor. “You never were a very good actress.” And then, grieving done, she looks up at Jon and tugs her blazer straight. Not a speck of ash is on it.

“Leitner was in there,” he says stupidly.

“I did think it might be worth talking to him once more,” she says. “Let’s find out how he died, shall we.” She unfolds a piece of parchment from her pocket and begins to read off it. “’She had timed it carefully. He was inhabited by Corruption when she came with spider’s webs of lies and silk. Filth poured from his wounds and pooled around her feet, but he was not inside himself. He had no dying thoughts because he was not there to die. Thus, in rapture at its own repugnance, ended Jurgen Leitner.’ Hmph. Self-congratulatory.”

Jon has eyes only for the dust swirling up into a column above the table, forming the shape of a man, hunched into a ball over his knees. He’s still for so long that Jon wonders if it’s not just a corpse Gertrude has summoned.

“Jurgen,” says Gertrude.

After a moment a chorus of voices speaks, none of them mistakable for human. They fill the room, worm into Jon’s ears, crawl down his spine. Each is saying something different and Jon can understand none of them, but somehow the gestalt makes itself understood: NOT MARY.

Jon tries to back away, stumbles, and falls. He can only sit on the floor, looking up in terror at the thing that is _not_ Jurgen Leitner. Mary was awful, of course she was, but she was _human_ at least. Dead, evil, but definitely human. Leitner is not. He doesn’t want it to move. He doesn’t want it to look up. He doesn’t want to see.

 _He has to see_.

“I’d like to speak to Jurgen Leitner,” says Gertrude, who is somehow not afraid. The thought flickers through Jon’s mind that this means she should be feared more than that thing.

HE IS DEAD, says the thing. Half of it seems to be laughing, other parts smiling, others snarling. GONE. MORE BOOKS.

“If you make any more books I shall burn them. I’m more interested in the identities of the books you made for Mary already.”

TRANSIENT, says the Leitner-thing, sounding delighted/disgusted/amused.  IS NOT TO KNOW.

“Let me talk to Beholding, then. The rest of you can leave.”

Hot tears are leaking out of Jon’s eyes the longer he stares. It still hasn’t noticed him, thank G-d. He doesn’t want it to. He wants to know what it will do if it does.

YOUR UNDERSTANDING IS INCORRECT, says the chorus.  WILL NOT GIVE WHAT YOU WANT. NO REASON.

“I could pledge you someone.”

Leitner’s hand rises and makes a sort of unfurling gesture, and an eye grows like the film of a soap bubble between the forefinger and thumb. His body is perfectly still, curled around some awful core, but his hand turns to look directly at Jon. The chorus laughs in a hundred different horrible ways.

Leitner’s hand drops from the air to hang off the edge of the table. He is still.

“Jurgen,” says Gertrude  again. She waits for what feels like an eternity while Jon shakes on the ground. He’s nearly able to stand up again when Gertrude’s lighter flicks and Leitner’s page begins to burn. The still form on the table sprouts little orange lights that look more like new plants than anything else… and very suddenly it jerks sideways toward him, falling off the table with a heavy thump.

“What’s it doing!” Jon yells, trying to scramble away as it pulls itself toward him with its hands, head dragging on the floor. “Gertrude!”

He doesn’t manage to get up before it’s cornered him against a shelf and lurches upward to seize his face, wrapping its temperatureless fingers around his jaw like it wants to prize it off. Jon can’t breathe, can’t move at all. Though it no longer has any eyes he can see, he knows it’s looking at him—through him, into him. YOUR PLEDGE, says the chorus. Its voices shudder through him strangely, like a wave through the ocean, like a tide that leaves weird things washed up behind it. As much as he does not want it to raise its head, does not want to see whatever center it was protecting when it curled up on the table… _he needs to_. Because it’s burning up, and this is the only chance he’ll ever have.

“C-can I see you?”

Slowly it raises its head; breathless, pressed as far back away from it as possible, he waits. It raises its head. It Looks at him.

It has no face. What is has instead is—is—is it a labyrinthine machine whose turning complexity he could lose himself in forever? Is it a single eye the size of a sun? Is it a tower with a blinding light shining directly into him? Is it the scale of the universe itself, encompassing the madly vibrating atoms in the same mind-destroying understanding as the infinite galaxies? Is it—

Is it… waiting? He leans forward, knowing that ‘looking closer’ is hopeless but needing to do it all the same.

IS ACCEPTED, says a looping, mile-long chain of teeth. The ghost burns to nothing, leaving Jon with a hammering heart and more questions than ever.

He sits there for a long time before he even realizes that Gertrude has gone, leaving nothing but ash and a lingering smell of burnt skin. He’s not sure why he begins to weep. It could be a lot of things; it could be a feeling of loss or it could be that he cannot believe he is safe now. He pulls his legs up to his chest and cries until two soft paws pat his knees, and Annie gently butts her head into his. He raises a hand to pet her, and she pushes into it, but in the next moment disappears. He looks up to find her sitting on Martin’s chest across the room, looking at him and meowing softly. He stumbles to his feet, walks to Martin’s body and sinks down again, exhausted. He needs to find out what that meant, any of it. Something important happened, but he can barely think. His pledge was accepted? What does that—

Annie meows more insistently and bats at his hand, so he leans forward to feel for a pulse. He’s faintly revolted by the idea of touching someone else without permission (or indeed at all), but it is good to know that Martin is alive. Still, it’s unclear what Mary did to him and whether he’ll wake up without help. Jon tries to remember the diagnostic ritual that Martin used to find which Powers were in the books. What did he do, besides think at them really hard without explaining anything? He just kept saying it was something that would come naturally once Jon worked here for longer. But what Mary did was most likely the End anyway, what else would she have had to hand?

“What the hell are we going to do?” he asks Annie, compact and purring on Martin’s chest. “He’s as good as dead unless I can find someone to cure him. And the shop… at least it’s not the front, I suppose. And none of the books were harmed.”

Because there’s nothing else he can do, he drags Martin into the front of the shop and sweeps up all the ashes in the back. The floor and table are blackened, and there really isn’t anything he can do about that. He feels very alone, the last of the five people who were here tonight. Two are now dead—maybe three—and the last has walked off without giving him any kind of answer to anything.

He sits down heavily in his chair at the scorched table, and Annie opens one yellow eye from her station on top of Martin. “I’m tired, Annie. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Mary was supposed to tell me what the hell’s going on. Leitner was supposed to tell me— _anything_. No-one was supposed to die. Or, or be a puppet full of ghosts! If that’s even what happened!”

Annie purrs and purrs, because that’s all she can give him. He sits leaning over his knees for the rest of the night, keeping watch.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which Jon's overconfidence gets him in over his head, again

Jon has to work the counter during Martin’s shift next day. He’s awful at it, as well as sore. He’d much rather he was in the back instead of Martin, propped limply in a chair so as not to look like he’s dead. At least Jon doesn’t manage to offend too many customers, because not many people want to buy secondhand books on a Friday morning. So he has a lot of time to think about what happened last night. A lot of time to draw endless connection charts that might be able to explain how Gertrude was watching him, how a thing inside Jurgen Leitner grabbed him and looked into parts of him he didn’t have before, how any of these absurd things could be true and what they have to _do_ with each other. His stomach starts to hurt, and it takes several hours to realize that he’s hungry because he hasn’t eaten for most of a day. But he can’t motivate himself to get up for something as irritating as food.

Tim comes in a bit before one as usual. Jon thinks he’s a customer for a moment and jerks up to sitting from a dream of the blinding tower, trying to pretend he’s properly awake.

“Well, good to see you’re still alive,” says Tim. “Mostly. How’d it go last night?”

Jon opens his mouth, but finds he can’t think of anything to say. He just jerks his head toward the door to the back. Tim walks cautiously toward it and peers through, where Annie is presumably still sitting sentinel on Martin’s slumped lifeless back.

“Is he… sleeping off the epic battle?”

“In a sense,” Jon mutters. “I don’t think he’s going to wake up. Unless I can… find someone who’ll help. But I d… I don’t know who to ask.”

“Dammit. Uh, I dunno, Gerard Keay maybe? It sounded like he’d be pretty grateful if you killed his mum. Jesus, that sounds bad. You did kill her, right?”

“Gertrude did,” Jon does not say. In fact, what his voice says is, “Yes. Unfortunately when I burned the book, Leitner burned too.” What the hell? Did she put the doll curse on him again? He checks his hands, and then all of his pockets, but he can’t find anything that could be speaking for him.

“Jon…? Are you…?”

“Cursed,” he spits. His voice says, “I just thought of something. But I can’t find it, so never mind.”

He sags back into his chair. “Yes, I suppose I could call Gerard. The worst that could happen is that he kills me too, and then you’ll have to run the shop on your own.”

“Let’s think about the positives. The best that can happen is he cures Martin and nobody ever has to read a Leitner again!”

“They’re still out there, Tim,” he mutters. “Fine, I’ll call him.”

Gerard picks up on the first ring and says, “Good news.”

“Er… yes. I think. Your mother and Leitner have both been destroyed.”

“Oh, well, then. Congratulations on surviving. Is that all?”

“No, er, Martin didn’t—do you know Martin Blackwood? He’s been at Magnus for almost ten years, I think.”

“Yeah, met him a few times.”

“Mary did something to him, and now he won’t wake up. I don’t really know very much magic—you saw that firsthand—and I don’t think I can help him. And you’re the only person who might owe me a favor…”

“Hah. You could call it that. All right, I could come take a look at him. Not like I’ve got a shop to run, after all. See you.”

Jon spends the next hour or so reading in the window, glancing fretfully out of it every so often. Rather than entering by the door like a normal person, however, Gerard makes himself known through an awful burning feeling of being watched, which Jon tries to ignore for almost ten minutes. When he can no longer stand it he looks up from his book to find Gerard watching from a dark corner that isn’t usually dark at all. His clothing blends into the shadows, leaving him nothing but a pale face and restless hands spattered with staring eyes. It takes Jon a moment to realize that his hands aren’t weaving some sinister spell, he’s just petting Annie, who’s completely invisible against his black shirt.

“How long were you going to stand there watching me?” Jon is trying to contain his waspishness, since he needs Gerard to like him for at least a little while, but it’s difficult. He so rarely tries to contain himself.

“It’s what I do,” says Gerard with a shrug. “My nature is not to make the first move. Shall we start?”

Jon stands and gestures him toward the back with bad grace. When Gerard leans over Martin’s body, Annie flows up over his back and jumps to Jon’s shoulder, where he gives her a withering look for being so indiscriminate. For—abandoning Martin to get petted by _Gerard Keay_. She kneads into his shirt, pricking his shoulder with her claws.

“The moment he dies will be exactly like this one,” says Gerard, as if remarking on the weather. “But he’s not dead. Just trapped in a suffocating eternity of nothingness with no sensation or thought. So, dead but with a heartbeat, I guess.”

“Can you bring him _back_.”

“The End is a tricky one. Most methods of neutralization would just finish him off and call that job done. It’s inside him, you see? But I think…” He takes a lighter out of his pocket, and as he flicks it Jon can see that it has an embossed golden eye. Gerard leans down to whisper something in Martin’s ear, and Jon is so preoccupied trying to listen in that he fails to notice Gerard is holding the flame to the back of Martin’s wrist. He starts forward, but before he even knows what he’s trying to do Martin sits up with a gasp, nearly headbutting Gerard. His pupils are blown wide and he’s panting as if he sprinted here to this chair.

“My G-d,” he says. “What did you just do?”

Gerard shrugs. “Most alive thing I could think of. Ironic, I guess. How are you feeling?”

“Like I ran a marathon…” Martin presses his burned hand over his heart. “And also in kind of a lot of pain. But I’m not dead, so thank you.” He looks up and his eyes widen again. “Jon! You’re alive! I can’t believe she didn’t kill you. You’ve got to tell me what happened.”

“I can’t,” Jon tries to say. His voice tells Martin, “I managed to get to the book and burn it before Mary could do anything to me.” Gerard gives him a piercing look. Come on, see it. See what’s happening.

“Really,” says Martin.

“No,” says Jon. Martin waits for an explanation he cannot give, for about half a minute while Jon scowls at the books behind him.

“Well, I’d better get going,” says Gerard. “Been fun, I guess.”

Jon moves to block the doorway, feeling rather desperate. “There are a lot of things I want to ask you. A-and, and, a lot of things I _want_ to tell you.”

“Mm,” says Gerard. “Maybe not while I’m skipping work, though. I don’t have any employees to cover for me, so…”

“I—I can come back to your shop.”

Martin is giving him a very strange look, no doubt wondering when he stopped being terrified of being alone with Gerard Keay. Jon can only give him a hopeless grimace and a shrug in reply.

“Fine,” says Gerard. “Come on, then.”

Jon follows him out, stopping by the counter to tell Tim he might not be back today, disentangling Annie with some difficulty, and half-running to catch up.

“I’ll call the police if you don’t come in tomorrow,” Tim calls after him.

“Thank you,” Jon says over his shoulder. It really is a comfort.

 

On the way to the tube station Jon has to walk slightly faster than he’d like, because Gerard has much longer legs and doesn’t seem interested in slowing down enough to talk. On the train itself he stands resolutely turned away from Jon, nevertheless giving the impression that the line of eyes tattooed on his vertebrae are watching from behind his hair. On the step of Pinhole Books he seems about to let the door swing closed behind him before Jon grabs it, and he begins to wonder if Gerard actually remembers he’s here. He tries to be noisy on the stairs, but the carpet is so thick and soft that he can barely make noise if he wants to. Gerard goes up to the same office as before, sits down at the desk, and starts looking for something in the drawers.

Jon stands awkwardly in front of it, feeling ignored and trying desperately not to look at the eye painting, then finally clears his throat. “Are you busy?”

“Yeah,” says Gerard without looking up from the ledger he’s now poring over. “Running a store on your own is quite a lot of work, if you can believe it.”

By this point Jon is pretty sure that if Gerard doesn’t want to talk, he won’t. So he says, “Is there anything I can help with?”

Gerard snorts. “You’re the type of person who just loves to be helpful, I can tell. Yeah, can you do inventory entry?”

“Just show me where.”

Gerard points to an ancient desktop computer, nearly hidden behind stacks of books, and Jon picks his way over to it. “I’m not paying you, by the way.”

“Didn’t expect you to,” says Jon under his breath. “I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart, after all.”

In fact it’s quite peaceful, silently working near another person. He’s been missing the library where he wrote most of his thesis, a hive of hushed activity, filled with quiet concentration. It’s also interesting to see how Pinhole tracks their books—it’s less comprehensive than Magnus’ system, but there are a few unexpected points he’s never had to note down before, like the printing method and gender of the author. He’s so content in the dimly lit room (and the shockingly comfortable chair) that when he’s done he picks up a biography of Flamsteed that caught his eye and starts reading, just as he would at Magnus.

At some point Gerard asks, “You finished, then?” Jon starts and looks up; he’s stood to stretch.

“Oh, er, yes, sorry for not mentioning it. I forgot I wasn’t at home. At Magnus, I mean.”

Gerard laughs. “Yeah? That’s all right. I don’t have much else for you to do besides putting them out for display, and that’d take too much explaining. I won’t kick you out if you just want to keep reading, though.”

“It’s better than having to go back to work,” says Jon darkly. “Martin might still be there, lying in wait, and Tim definitely will be, and if they ask what happened again—” He stops himself, remembering that he can’t even complain about it without having to hear that awful voice that nearly sounds like his.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to lie to Martin,” says Gerard, twirling his pen over his fingers. “Seeing as he’s your boss, and the only one of your lot who actually knows what he’s doing. You embarrassed that Gertrude had to bail you out?”

“No! I just…” Cautiously he tries, “…can’t.” But, as he was expecting, his voice speaks over him. “…don’t want to talk to them. They’re both nuisances.” Irritated, Jon checks his pockets again. It’s got to be here _somewhere_.

“Oh, I see. Not just her generalized influence, then. You won’t find anything, though. If she only put it on you last night it won’t have grown anything yet.” Jon stops rifling through his clothes and looks up slowly. “Do you know, it’ll eventually grow a whole body? They don’t start out looking like you, but by the end—”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Jon quickly. “I’ll find it later. I’m just frustrated. I still don’t know a thing about Leitner, and now he’s dead and I know Gertrude won’t tell me anything. Why is everyone in this business so damned secretive?”

“Oh, what, you want to know how he did it? No-one ever asks me. That’s Gerard, he’s harmless, his mother’s the one to watch out for. Basically just a cat’s paw. Huh!”

“Honestly I was intimidated,” Jon mumbles. “You do know that you look at people like you want to kill them?”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. It’s genetic. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to talk to people when they always look like they’re going to wet themselves.” He gives Jon a disgusted look, as if to remind him that he, too, looked like he was going to wet himself when they met. Or… no. If Jon looks closely, he just seems tired.

“Genetic?” he ventures.

“Oh, you’ll like this one. Mary always told me my dad was Beholding. Took me a while to figure out babies don’t work like that, and another while to figure out that she was being completely literal.” Catching Jon’s bewildered expression, he laughs. “No, I really don’t want to think about her seducing Leitner’s empty body either, but here we both are.”

Jon flinches into himself, not because he couldn’t imagine seducing that thing but because he’s afraid he _will_ be able to if he tries. That’s insane. It’s not a thing that could _be_ seduced. “C-could you explain more about that? How he made himself into… that?”

“He was enough of an idiot to invite in every single Power, on time share. They made the books through him, and since he gave them free reign they made a lot of other decisions too. I’m not actually sure if he ever found out about that one. But they did a lot of awful things through him, and he never seemed to mind. He used to say something really patronizing… something like ‘good and evil are such limited concepts.’ As if anyone who thought people were worth saving just needed to grow up. Standard rich guy, really. Thinks he’s above morality and feels like he needs to go bigger than any other avatar, just to prove he can. Just to be their _favorite_. Tosser.”

Jon looks around desperately for a pen, feeling like he should be taking notes. All his questions are being answered, just like that, and him without a pen. Oh, he needs to find a way to _keep_ Gerard.

“I’m flattered,” says Gerard. “I think.”

Jon’s face grows hot. “Er, sorry. I mean, is there any way you can _not_ read my mind?”

“When you’re this close, and you’re thinking about me? Not really. It’s basically a directed communication, isn’t it? Sorry about that, I’d turn it off if I could. It’s just as embarrassing for me as it is for you. How’d you like it if you knew what people were thinking about you, all the time?”

Jon winces. He’s under no illusions about the kind of impression he makes.

“Yeah, exactly. You can leave if you want, I won’t be offended. Most people aren’t keen on sticking around with a personal privacy invasion machine.”

That sounds horribly lonely, Jon thinks, avoiding Gerard’s eyes. It’s not his fault that he was born terrifying any more than it’s Jon’s fault that he was born—socially stunted, or something. They each have an aura of repellence.

“No, I think I want to finish reading this,” says Jon. When he glances up, the tension has bled out of Gerard's shoulders, making him look almost at peace.

 

Jon receives the package on the same day he finds out that Gertrude is dead, a few days after the subdued August auction, from which Elias is curiously absent.

He hears about her death via the listserv; the rare and antique books world is buzzing like a disturbed hive now that three of its titans have disappeared in as many months. There’s a great deal of speculation on what could be doing this, and whether it will be coming for the rest of them. All three of them died in very different ways: Leitner vanished away, Keay skinned for a bloody ritual, and Robinson with a broken neck and a book of the Vast lying at the bottom of a ladder. But general agreement is that this is no coincidence. Some have suggested that it’s a chain of revenge killings; some a single coordinated effort to take out the old guard; everyone agrees that Dekker had better watch his back. For his part he seems unruffled. He doesn’t engage in speculation, only sends out a general invitation to her funeral on the thirteenth.

Jon is bewildered by the news, unable to believe that Gertrude Robinson could be defeated by a book. It’s not until he comes home and opens the package that the pieces fall into place. The first thing he sees is an article clipped from the newspaper—about Gertrude’s death. The note stuck to it says, _Now our work can begin_. Underneath is a book of fairy tales that Jon is loath to open, even though it has no bookplate of any kind. There are, however, dozens of pieces of paper tucked into it at different points, which, when he skims them, appear to be unconnected personal statements.

He brings it to work the next day (sans statements) to have Martin check it out. “It’s just a book,” Martin says, “but why do I get the feeling you’re mixed up in something awful again?”

“I’m always mixed up in something awful,” says Jon. “I’ve accepted that it’s my fate now.”

“You can just throw it away,” says Martin. He seems… sad? Desperate?

“Then I’d never know why it was sent to me.” It should be obvious that he can’t just _throw it away_ without doing his due diligence. It _means_ something.

“Look, um, do you want to know how people become avatars?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“People become avatars by picking and picking at something terrifying, refusing to let it go, until it turns back on them and swallows them. If you go far enough you won’t be able to come back. You’ll have the choice to become an avatar or die.”

The smiling chain of teeth flashes into his mind. “There are worse fates. You’re one, aren’t you?”

Martin blinks and turns his head away, looking strangely upset. “No, I’m not. I’m trying to hold it off as long as I can, but I know I’ll have to make the choice some day. I shouldn’t blame you for thinking that, though, you haven’t really seen what they do. You’ve been really, really lucky so far.”

“Lucky? You know how many times people have tried to kill me!”

“Yeah, maybe one time? Specifically because you went looking for her? Mike Crew kills people about once a month. That woman who you thought looked disgusting a couple weeks ago? She was thinking of killing _you_ for being so rude until I gave her a discount, and I should mention that it wouldn’t be quick. It never is. It’s slow and horrible and the most terrifying thing that can happen to you, and they will die if they don’t kill people. Don’t become something like them because you think there are no consequences to satisfying your curiosity. There are consequences, okay?”

Jon stares at his hands folded in his lap. He feels like he’s been told off. He can’t know anything without becoming a—an obligate murderer? Just because he was unlucky enough to get hired at a magic book shop? And what the _hell_ did he pledge to Beholding? “Then what do you want me to _do_?”

“Just… do your job. Look, I know how hard it is. I deal with it by channeling my need to know into looking after the shop. I know everything that goes on here, and that’s enough for me.”

“Everything?”

“I don’t like that look, Jon.”

“Do you know what happened after you were—knocked out, the night Mary Keay was destroyed?”

Martin frowns. “You were there.”

“I want to know if _you_ know.”

Martin’s frown seems to turn inward, as if he’s looking into the past. “No… That’s weird, actually. I guess Mary must have had some way to obscure supernatural vision. It’s not uncommon in our line of work. People get paranoid.” Jon makes a noise of frustration and turns on his heel to go into the back. “You don’t have to dance around it,” Martin calls after him. “You’re being kind of passive-aggressive right now!”

Jon checked every inch of his body as soon as he got home from Pinhole Books last week, but he couldn’t find a drawing anywhere. Nor has he been able to locate whatever is growing from Gertrude’s curse. Maybe she’s trying to make sure he helps her with whatever she’s doing: not only can’t he tell anyone that she’s alive, but he also needs her to remove the curse. She can kill him by doing absolutely nothing. He really ought to ask for Gerard’s help, if he can figure out how; should have done it when he had the chance. Will he be about to write without his words being replaced?

On a clean new sheet of paper he writes the words _Gertrude Robinson is alive, and she killed Mary Keay_. Nothing happens. Excited, he stands to go and show Martin, but when he tries to pick the paper up from the table he finds it pinned there, the point of his pen sunk almost a centimeter into the wood. The words have been scratched out so hard that the paper where they were is soaked, black, and shredded. He wrenches the pen out, now with a bent tip.

It was here. Whatever it is.

He writes the words again and watches the page intently, gripping his pen. He stares until his eyes begin to burn and water, and blinks—and when he opens them the words have been viciously scratched out again. He didn’t hear anything, and there’s no way it could have happened in the space of a blink _while he was holding the pen_ , but it has. It makes him feel shivery and weak, to know that something is so near. What would it do if he tried to write in front of Martin?

This probably falls under the category of ‘information he’ll become an avatar for.’ But surely it won’t make _that_ big a difference. He can be incurious tomorrow.

“Martin,” he calls, “I need you to look at something.”

Martin appears around the doorway with a sigh; he’s still annoyed with Jon. “What?”

“Come here,” says Jon, and Martin approaches. “I need you to watch me write this,” he says, but of course his voice speaks over him. “What do you want, Martin?”

Martin stops again, bewildered, so Jon quickly starts writing before he can leave or look away. The moment the pen touches the paper ink spills out of it like dark blue blood. He drags the nib through it anyway and makes it halfway through a C before something grips the underside of his wrist, so tightly that his hand spasms and he drops the pen. “You don’t know _everything_ that happens in this shop,” he tries to say, but the ringing silence of the other voice overwrites him. Can Martin even see his mouth forming words, or is he watching an unmoving doll’s face?

So instead he says, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll… get something to mop that up,” says Martin, and turns away.

Jon moves some things off the table to prevent them getting soaked in ink, and lets it drip onto the floor. Elias is going to have a fit when he sees what Jon’s done to the place in the last couple of weeks. ‘I’m cursed’ isn’t the best defense, but he won’t be able to say it anyway. Then again, if Elias actually cared what happened to his employees, he’d be watching and might know what the hell is going on.

He can hear Martin coming back with paper towels, so he hides in the short corridor to the back door. It’s stupid, in retrospect, because Martin knows where everything is in his shop—except, apparently, whatever is haunting Jon—but Martin doesn’t try to talk to him. Of course not. Jon wouldn’t talk to himself either. After Martin’s gone back to the front, he slinks into the bathroom and spends far too long scrubbing his hands and the spots of ink that have soaked through his cardigan and into his shirt. He takes his glasses off and balances them on the towel dispenser to wash his face; he’s wet all over anyway, so he might as well.

When he straightens up and looks in the mirror, something is behind him.

He spins, heart pounding, and nothing is there. But he can’t forget what he saw for a split second, even blurred without his glasses: something taller than he is, with bulging eyes behind its own thick-rimmed glasses, in his same green cardigan. It was not wearing the face-splitting smile that the doll was. He couldn’t tell its expression with his glasses off, but if he had to name it he would have said… _interested_.

He leaves the shop immediately by the back door, walking so quickly that his breath catches painfully in his throat and he has to slow down. He makes it onto the tube heading south and sits with his hands clenched in his lap. He misses his stop, and not until the train reaches Morden does the thing, the doll, the Not-Jon, seem to realize what he’s doing. As he stands, a hand around his leg jerks his feet forward, dumping him back into his seat. Long-fingered hands grip both his ankles, digging into the bruise left by the spider-thing two weeks ago. He sits in mute, frozen fear as everyone else files out of the train, and it moves off to the turnaround.

He’s released in time to get off at his stop. He limps home, shaking, checking over his shoulder every few steps, to have a look at the statements Gertrude sent. He doesn’t really have any other choice, does he?

All of the statements are about things that are almost human. A neighbor replaced by a bad copy of himself. A mannequin that walks and kills like a person. A shop run by a man as dead as the taxidermy he sells. Machines created to speak in human voices. It’s this last one that Gertrude has left a note on, explaining how the Unknowing almost changed the world forever, and how the Stranger is ready to try again. Given what she’s done to him, it seems like some sort of cruel joke: she wants him to help her stop the Stranger from taking over the world, but she’s extorting him into it by feeding him to the Stranger. It’s probably reading over his shoulder right now, and he can only hope that it doesn’t have some kind of hive mind that allows it to transmit information. He lets his head fall into his hands, pressing his palms into his eyes under his glasses. He’s convinced he can feel the Not-Jon standing behind him, although he knows that when he turns there will be nothing there.

He puts the book and the statements on his empty bookshelf and tries to sleep, unwilling to go back to work and unable to open his laptop for the bruisingly tight grip on his wrist. He cannot help but imagine something long and thin lying under his bed, waiting for him to fall asleep.

 

He dreams of the Eye.

 

He would like to bring the statements to work to pore over them there—if nothing else, perhaps someone would catch sight of them and ask—but he can’t risk the Not-Jon damaging them. So he brings the book of fairy tales and reads that instead of what he’s supposed to be reading. If he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to, maybe someone will _notice_.

Martin doesn’t try to talk to him at all, though Jon can’t guess why. He’s not the type to hold grudges. Maybe he thinks he’s giving Jon space? Jon is in such a bad mood that he doesn’t even acknowledge Tim when he comes in for his shift, but that doesn’t stop the Not-Jon from saying an inappropriately cheerful hello.

“Where were you yesterday?” Tim asks. “Martin said you were in during the morning, but he didn’t know where you went. Trying to avoid me?”

“Oh, no,” says the Not-Jon. “I was just feeling a bit ill. I suppose I forgot to tell Martin.”

“Must be nice, not getting paid by the hour,” says Tim. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes, I had a sandwich,” says the Not-Jon. Maybe it did, but Jon certainly hasn’t. He grinds his teeth, glaring at the book, and thinks of what he’d like to do to the Not-Jon, if it were even possible to find it.

 

Later, when Jon is reading in the window, a woman comes in and sees him before Tim. “Do you have Russian classics?” she asks, smiling at a point somewhere above his right shoulder.

“Yes, I can show you.” She looks surprised when he speaks, and redirects her gaze to his face.

“O-oh. Thank you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which jon has... friends?! and feels like this is incorrect

He leaves work late out of a desire not to be at home, but pays no attention to the trains. He’d rather stay on the platform where there are other people. None of them will look at him—no doubt they’ll see the Not-Jon before they see him—but it’s still comforting that normal people still _exist_ , still go about their business, still walk without being shadowed by a thing that is too tall and wearing their faces.

He’s yanked suddenly sideways by his collar and stumbles toward the train clutching at his neck. Ah. Yes. The Not-Jon doesn’t want him to miss another one. It wants him alone.

He returns to his flat and makes the most elaborate dinner he can manage, which is vegetable soup and flatbread. It’s almost enough to forget  everything else—at least until he gets distracted seasoning the soup and smells his bread burning, only to find when he turns that it has been taken out of the pan and neatly stacked with the others.

His stomach turns. It’s _helping_. No doubt to taunt him.

He considers throwing that bread away, but he’s been taught never to waste food. He flips the pile over so it’s on the bottom, and hopes he’ll forget which one it is.

There’s a knock on the door. _Knock, knock_. He shudders, but turns the heat off under the pan and goes to get it, because talking to anyone will be welcome right now. If they can see him, anyway.

When he opens the door _Gerard_ is standing in the hall, looking malevolently bored as always with a large satchel slung over his shoulder. Jon stares for a moment, but when Gerard makes brief eye contact and nods, relief floods through him. It turns to fear a moment later when a hand grips the back of his neck, to prevent him stepping aside to let him in.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. The Not-Jon echoes him, but it sounds angry: “What are _you_ doing here?”

“The old woman asked me to come,” says Gerard. “Normally I’d want nothing to do with her scheming, but she mentioned that a friend was in trouble. Can I come in?”

“Please,” says Jon. “No. I’m busy,” says the Not-Jon. While they struggle over the doorknob, Gerard pushes past Jon and into the flat. Jon turns, and the door slams and locks behind him.

“Smells good in here,” says Gerard. He seems to be drifting toward the kitchen. “You made these from scratch.”

“Would you like some?” says Jon. “Go away, go away, go AWAY!” says the Not-Jon.

“In a bit,” says Gerard. Can he actually not _hear_ the Not-Jon? “Yeah, I can, but I’m not going to talk to it. Shall I make us a cup of tea?”

“Thank you,” Jon says quietly.

“Yeah, come here, I’ll show you the way I learned it.”

The way Jon normally makes tea does not involve laying his hand on a boiling hot kettle, drawing incomprehensible runes, or reciting an invocation to Asag. He’s trying to ignore the grip on both his wrists, holding them at his sides when he tried to reach for his pen to take notes, but his whole body has broken out in a cold sweat. It’s hard to concentrate. “W-what do you do so it, ah, doesn’t hurt when you touch the kettle?” he asks.

“What?” Gerard actually laughs. “It hurts like hell. You get used to it.” He shows Jon his palm, which is white and shiny, all the fingerprints burned off. “Now, this next bit is a little invasive. I’m going to have to search you for the mark, or anchor, or whatever.”

The Not-Jon’s hands wrap delicately around his throat, just enough that he can feel them against the fine hairs, not truly touching. When he swallows, his throat pushes into it, and he has to tense his whole body not to jerk into its grasp. “I looked everywhere already,” he says faintly.

“Everywhere you could _see_ , sure.”

“O-oh. Go ahead, then.”

Again the feeling of being scoured with a wire brush from the inside out, a kind of pain on the brink of becoming physical, and then Gerard sighs. “If you’d asked earlier, before it sunk in, we could have done this pretty painlessly. Why didn’t you?”

He was so confident that he’d be able to take care of it on his own, had more important ways to spend his goodwill, and by the time he realized otherwise it was too late. He avoids the question, wishing he could move his head to look away. “What do we need to do?”

“Well, I’m going to have to pull one of your teeth. And cut open your hand. Er, if it’s any consolation, it’s not one of the ones you had before this. The tooth, I mean.”

Jon’s tongue goes immediately to the tooth that’s been growing sideways out of his gums for the last week, stabbing into his lip until it made a sore. “Why do you need to cut open my hand?”

“Well, the tooth is like the doll. We’ll be dropping that in the tea. But there’s a drawing on you as well, that will just grow another one if you let it. Don’t ask me how Gertrude managed to draw on the inside of your skin, because you probably don’t want to know. It’ll have to be scrubbed off.”

“I-I don’t have any anesthetic cream.”

“Oh,” says Gerard. “I forgot you could get that. You can look at this.” Gerard pulls out his alternative to anesthetic cream from his bag—it’s the eye painting from his office. Jon almost laughs, because of course he would think of this first. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to look at it while I do the tooth, though. The angles might be kind of tricky.”

“Do what you need to.”

Gerard takes out a pair of pliers. Jon opens his mouth, and screws his eyes shut.

He’s only ever had teeth pulled with anesthetic before, the sharp pinch and dull ache of the needle going into his cheek. He’s always felt that the worst part was the sick _crack_ as the roots of the tooth were pulled out of his jaw. And it is horrible, but he was wrong. The worst part is definitely the pain.

He hunches into himself, cradling his jaw with one hand and clutching the evil tooth with the other. He’s trying not to whimper too loudly, but he jumps in panic and looks around wildly when someone starts to scream, a long ceaseless wail of abject terror or pain.

“Oh, tea’s done,” says Gerard, under the screaming. He tips the spout lid back and the noise stops. Jon slumps back onto the table and listens to him pouring and the rustling of dried herbs, trying to calm his pounding heart by breathing very slowly. A mug of rather strange-smelling tea is put in front of him. “Just drop it in there,” says Gerard. As Jon lifts his hand to do so, the Not-Jon grabs his wrist. But he doesn’t think he’s imagining that its grip is weaker now, and slowly he reaches out, and slowly he opens his fingers. The tooth plops into the tea and dissolves like a cube of sugar. A weight lifts from his shoulders where the Not-Jon was leaning over him, and he wants to cry.

“Why don’t we have some dinner before we try any surgery,” Gerard says—kindly, Jon can only imagine, although his voice sounds more like Shelley’s _cold sneer of command_.

“It’s, er… it’s a good thing I made soup.”

The soup makes his mouth hurt more, but he’s very hungry all of a sudden. It’s cheering to watch Gerard wolfing down soup and bread; he hasn’t made food for anyone since—since undergrad. This is, he imagines, very much what it must be like to have a friend. Someone you invite home to have dinner and play board games or watch a movie or pull out your teeth to break a curse, after being asked to do so by the very person who cursed you in the first place.

“What I don’t understand is why she did this to me, if she didn’t want me to, I don’t know, be replaced by an evil doppelganger. To scare me?”

Gerard sighs. “I think you surprised her with your unwillingness to ask for help. She was expecting you to get me to do it as soon as you possibly could—it was intended more as a warning what not to speak of. She wants your help with the Unknowing, after all. But you were more interested in information. Don’t get too close to the Eye, Jon.”

Physically, he can’t get much closer than he already has, which he feel strangely guilty about considering that it wasn’t his fault. But Gerard is telling him not to become an avatar, and unlike Martin he actually is one.  “Do you kill people? To survive?”

“I would rather die,” says Gerard, looking him straight in the eye. “But Martin was wrong. It’s not death that they live on. It’s fear. And I can’t help that people are afraid of me.”

They’re silent for the rest of the meal: Jon in embarrassment, speculation, relief, dread; and Gerard for some other reason that is opaque to Jon. He doesn’t speak until he’s laid out a scalpel, suturing thread and needle, rubbing alcohol… and propped the painting up on the counter. “It’s under the skin, here,” he says, tapping the back of Jon’s left hand with the blunt end of the scalpel. Jon wonders whether Gertrude told him to bring those, or whether there was no chance of tonight not ending in amateur surgery. Then he points at the painting: “Look.”

Jon looks. His eyes flick from detail to detail, cataloguing and making connections. If this one breaks the pattern in just this way, there might be another on the opposite side. If only he can remember it by the time he finds the way through the maze of other equally important things to remember. Yes… yes… then if these two are like that, there’s just one more piece of information he needs to understand the first part of a riddle more enormous that he can comprehend. It will take a lifetime to hunt down every secret of this painting, but he’s more than willing to spend it all.

Something dark is between him and the painting, then when it moves away the painting has been turned face-down on the counter. He almost gets up to turn it back over, but when he pushes off the table his hand burns and he sits down abruptly, hissing in pain. The back of his left hand has been cut neatly in the shape of a letter I, like a frog for dissection. Now it’s sewn up with tiny, precise stitches, sluggishly oozing blood and smeared with clear ointment. Gerard puts down a roll of gauze on the table in front of him, and he wraps it inexpertly. He’s grateful that he gets to do it himself, although his hands are both shaking and he feels like he might be sick.

“Now, please don’t do that again. I really don’t like… skin. Or blood. Especially in conjunction. Just be less of an idiot and ask, next time.”

“Of course,” Jon mutters. “And… thank you, Gerard.”

“You know,” says Gerard, looking away suddenly out the window, “I always wanted to ask my friends to call me Gerry.”

“All right, then. Thank you, Gerry.”

Gerard smiles—it’s the first time Jon has ever seen him smile, isn’t it?—and finishes packing up. “See you, Jon,” he says.

 

He doesn’t tell Martin anything. It’s not that he doesn’t think Martin can keep a secret, he’s just not sure if he could stand any more of Martin’s help. He does apologize, though. “For my strange behavior,” he adds. “And for, er, ingratitude?”

Martin can’t keep a straight face any more, although it’s clear he was trying to be stern. “Ingratitude? What are you talking about?”

“For your advice. G-d knows it can’t be very rewarding trying to give me advice. So… thank you.”

“You just want lessons again,” says Martin, but he seems amused.

“Well, I wouldn’t object,” Jon mumbles.

“I can’t hold your antisocial-ness against you. It would be like—never mind. Pull up the other stool, we can practice out here.”

“What I really need to understand is how to construct, to create _new_ spells. And how to tell whether they’ll be safe to use.”

“Well, there’s not really any way to use the Powers safely, but I get your point. It would be good if you didn’t mix up tracking people and killing people. I’ll try and come up with some examples that I’ve seen…”

By the time the bell above the door rings, Jon has already made up a stupid excuse about his hand (after Martin saw him trying to hide it) and the counter is strewn with pieces of paper covered in diagrams, charts, strange symbols, and everything Jon is trying to hold in his head. He looks up in mild alarm, wondering if they should hide their work, but then he realizes that it’s Basira and Sasha who have come in.

“Nice place,” says Sasha brightly. “I can’t believe I’ve never been in here before. The atmosphere is lovely.”

“Hallo, Sasha, Basira. What brings you here?”

“Well,” says Sasha, “mostly I wanted to see my good friend Jon and make sure he hasn’t been murdered or anything, since he hasn’t been replying to my texts or picking up his phone in the last week. Also, you owe me money.”

Jon’s ears grow slightly hot. “Er, yes. Thank you for reminding me. I’ve been very… busy, this past week, and some things may have slipped through the cracks.”

“He’s mostly been busy being very rude,” Martin tells her. Jon glares at him. “And spilling ink on things.”

“That was not my fault,” Jon mutters. “How much do I owe you?”

“I printed you out an invoice, because I’m lovely like that. You’ve already done two of these—see, there’s nothing for them in the owing column…”

Jon and Sasha take a trip to a nearby ATM, leaving Basira to browse Magnus’ collection. She tells him that she’s excited to be an aunt, interrogates him about his injured hand, and asks him to come for drinks again some time. It’s all rather too normal to be happening.

When they return Martin is ringing Basira up for five books while she traces something on one of the papers with a finger. He tilts his head to read the titles, all on different subjects. Botany, astronomy, near eastern writing systems, history of British radio, and one very careworn thriller. “I have a lot of downtime,” she says when she sees him looking. “I like to keep my mind busy.”

“You should have asked,” he says. “I could have recommended you something.”

She smiles. “Maybe next time. This is about all my budget has room for right now.”

“So you started working here,” Sasha is saying, “and, what, your boss was just like, you’ve got to learn magic so a book doesn’t eat you? Did that come up in the job interview?”

Martin laughs. “Oh, no, I had to figure that out on my own. It was actually just after Magnus opened—or, reopened, rather, it had to be rebuilt after it burned down—so there weren’t any other employees who knew what was going on either.”

“Burned down, you say…”

“Right. I’ve always suspected foul play but I’ve never actually asked Elias.”

“Was it really different back then?”

Jon turns back to Basira with a shrug. “It seems like they’ll be a while. If you want to read in the window, it’s pretty nice. And according to Tim it’s free advertising for the shop.”

“Yeah? All right. You got a lot of work to do?”

He sighs. “Mostly supernatural research. But I suppose I ought to start reading books for recommendation again. They have a way of piling up.”

“You should get some chairs. Then you’d have somewhere to read if the window is taken.”

“Would it be tacky to see someone reading in both windows?”

“Nah,” she says, and laughs. “Makes it look like hot real estate.” She heads off with her books under her arm, and Jon goes to find something to read in the back. It’s so pleasant to be chatting with Sasha and her partner, reading in the window, that he keeps having the feeling that he must be dreaming. People _seem_ to actually want to talk to him, to help him. He isn’t cursed or under someone else’s control. The low gray sky that’s been sitting over London for weeks no longer seems oppressive, but pensive. Everything is so nice that he can’t help but exist in a state of tension, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It does so… slowly.

He spends the next week learning to use the Powers more or less safely and doing research on Gertrude’s statements, which he does _not_ intend to share with her. It just seems like useful information to have. By the thirteenth he has a broad idea of what form the Unknowing will take: a circus populated by the hollowed-out skins of things that were once people; a dance. What he doesn’t know is how Gertrude intends to _stop_ it. Nearly all the pieces, other than the Ringmaster, are interchangeable. Perhaps she intends to destroy the Ringmaster itself. Not that it’s any concern of Jon’s. She can find someone else to do her dirty work, once she decides what it is. She didn’t even offer to help clean up all the ash she left in the shop.

On the thirteenth he puts on his good suit and goes to her funeral. It’s strange, seeing all the booksellers in mourning clothes, in the sunny low-ceilinged funeral home instead of the Reform Club. There is _no-one_ there he doesn’t recognize from the auctions. Gertrude Robinson has no family or friends. Only colleagues.

Her partner is there, though, somberly collecting condolences from the people who pause to speak to him in low voices before moving on. He’s an island of stillness in the slowly moving tide that swirls around the casket.

It’s an open casket—that surprised Jon. Gertrude is laid out inside, looking very little like a woman who has died of a broken neck and very much like she might just be pretending. Jon has the horrible urge to poke her, to see if she’ll crack open one eye to glare at him. Because she’s _not_ dead, although her chest doesn’t rise or fall. He thinks he might not be the only one who has surreptitiously held up a hand in front of her nose today. But this is… probably not her, anyway. She has more important things to do than attend her own funeral.

The part where people get up in front of everyone and talk about their memories of her is very strange. They’re not the right kind of memories, not exactly; everyone here has owed a debt to Gertrude at one time or another, it seems, and many of them tell the stories of how she helped them. But they all remember to add, almost as an afterthought, that of course she would need to be paid back, with interest. This is Gertrude’s legacy: that she never did anything without expecting something in return. That she wove an intricate web of blackmail and favors owed. Jon wonders whether Mary would be here telling a story, if Gertrude hadn’t killed her. And if she hadn’t gone into deep cover by apparently killing herself…

Stupid question. But Gerard is here, lurking as he likes to do. Jon knows because he feels horribly exposed, all of a sudden and for no reason he can determine, during the eulogy. Compulsively he checks over his shoulder and finds Gerard leaning against the wall at the back of the room, in the shadow of a potted plant. He gives Jon a sardonic little smile, puts his finger to his lips, and points to the speaker. Jon turns back around, but he feels watched for the rest of the service. He’s not sure any more whether that means Gerard is actually watching him, or just that he’s present. The other booksellers must be used to it, because he doesn’t see many of them looking over their shoulders.

There’s a sort of a wake afterward, or at least a more cheerful milling about with finger food in the front room of the funeral home. Jon stands in a corner with a plate of tiny sausages, too awkward to make small talk even when he’s _not_ at a funeral. He’s hoping Gerard will appear and they can be silently awkward together, but it’s Adelard Dekker who approaches him. He does a pretty good show of making it seem like he just wants to be out of the press of people, and sits down in an oddly placed chair with a theatrical sigh. Jon wonders whether he actually _has_ been approached, for a moment. Then Dekker says,

“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” Jon glances down at him, confused. “I know Gertrude left you some unfinished business, and I know you’re out of your depth.”

“To be completely honest, I wasn’t planning on finishing it for her.”

Dekker makes a little amused “Hmh!” Then he says, “Regardless, I expect you’ll have some questions. Come and see me, when this is over, and I’ll do my best to answer them.”

“Maybe I’d better not,” says Jon, unable to stop a nervous laugh from escaping. “Wouldn’t want you to be murdered or something.” Dekker raises his eyebrows at Jon, who flushes. “Er, personal joke, I suppose. Almost everyone who I’ve tried to get answers out of died or disappeared before they could tell me anything.”

“You’ve somehow gotten yourself right into the middle of the worst kind of politics,” says Dekker. “You seem to have a talent for digging and digging until you find… a corpse.”

“They weren’t corpses before I got to them,” Jon mutters. Dekker laughs, and he realizes what he’s said.

“Come or don’t come. I’ll do my best not to get killed before you get there. I won’t hold it against you if I’m murdered, unless it’s your doing. But you wouldn’t kill anyone, Mr. Sims.” It’s a rather comforting sentiment, but given that they’ve talked perhaps four times, and mostly about book appraising, Jon doesn’t like the certainty with which he says it.

“I think I should go,” says Jon.

“I’ll be back at work after three,” says Dekker peaceably.

Jon really doesn’t want to have anything to do with Gertrude Robinson or her plans. He doesn’t want to save the world at all, just to understand it. But he has the feeling that almost no-one can help him, because the booksellers don’t understand it either. They know just enough to keep from being eaten by a book, and they turn away from any information that might be dangerous. Who, confronted with an entity like the one inside Jurgen Leitner, could be so incurious as to leave it alone? Who could possibly want anything else when such mysteries are _right there_?

And this is why, at 3:30, he is at Dekker and Robinson’s bookstore. The door has no bell above it, possibly because the proprietors always know when someone has come in. It certainly seems that way, since he’s still looking around the counter for a service bell when Dekker strolls out of the back and gives him something that could charitably be called a smile. “Come in,” he says, lifting a section of the counter away for Jon to step through. Dekker and Robinson’s back room is a lot nicer than the one at Magnus. It’s got actual wallpaper, for a start, and it looks more like a sitting room than a storage area. It’s both chintzy and vaguely occult, more what he would have expected from Mary Keay than Gertrude Robinson. It’s more welcoming than Mary’s dark rooms, papered in maroon with red carpets and altogether like the inside of an enormous throat. Still, Jon perches uneasily on an armchair while Dekker offers him tea that was clearly made only a few minutes ago. It’s jasmine, which he doesn’t like, so he pretends it’s too hot to drink.

“You want to know more about the Unknowing,” says Dekker, before Jon can formulate a question. He nods. “You’re already aware that it’s a ritual whose purpose is to change the nature of the world, to bring it closer to the Stranger. What you may not know is that it is not the only ritual of its kind. We’re in the midst of a whole spate of them. In 2008 was the Buried—Gertrude put an end to that one. She did for the Flesh a few months later, the Spiral in 2009, and then Desolation just last year. She’s not the only one, of course; avatars are always interfering in each other’s business. We had the Vast in 2010 and Corruption the year after that, both stopped by a few very determined agents of Desolation. I could go on, but I think you take my point. Balance, Mr. Sims. The Powers of Fear bicker over this world like a pack of wild dogs, leaving plenty of chances to snatch it out of their jaws.”

“I still don’t understand why she would want _my_ help with it. I’m just…”

“Just curious. I know. But you caught her attention. There are very few people foolish enough to stick their noses into Mary Keay’s business. Unfortunately there are also very few people foolish enough to save the world.”

Jon still doesn’t see why it should be his problem, but he does feel guilty about it. He pretends to sip his tea. “I suppose you’re foolish enough,” he says at last.

“Of course,” says Dekker, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Mr. Sims, what is it you really want?”

“I want to know—just tell me _why_ this is happening.”

“Because our world is food for them. They _are_ fear.” Dekker pauses to frown intently at Jon. “What you want can’t be summed up in a single question. You want everything, and I’m afraid I can’t give it to you. I could talk until I withered away, and it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy you. There are some things, Mr. Sims, that you will only truly learn through experience.”

“And that’s supposed to convince me to help Gertrude? I may be curious, but I’m not an idiot. Getting close to the Unknowing won’t help her, it will just make me more likely to get killed.”

“If you’re not an idiot, you’re doing a fine impression,” Dekker snaps. “You let Beholding touch you.” He lays his fingers along the edge of his own jaw. “You asked it for more. I hope that you’re prepared when it gives you what you asked for, because it will be much more dangerous than the Unknowing. There, the worst thing that could happen to you is dying in abject terror.” He stands and looks down at Jon for a moment, and then sweeps up the staircase in the corner of the room. “What Beholding will do to you is much, much worse.”

He’s already gone by the time Jon manages to yell after him, “What do you mean? Dekker?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since this caused some amount of confusion for my beta reader, I want to point out that the reference to "shelley's cold sneer of command" is not about michael shelley but about percy shelley, from his poem ozymandias. jon, romantic poets?? shocking!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which: my favorite girls

He considers asking Gerard, or even Elias, what exactly Beholding will _do to him_. But he doesn’t actually want to upset Gerard, and has no way of finding Elias to talk face to face. So he searches through the books at Magnus. The shop has a large collection of folk tales and even a few collections of horror stories, but as it turns out none of them are what he needs. On Sunday, when the shop is closed, he goes to the Central library, a glass-fronted edifice so massive he feels that it _must_ have what he wants, somewhere. He ends up with a large stack of books called things like _True Tales of the Weird_ , and then since he’s in the library anyway he might as well look into some of the leads he wrote down about the Unknowing.

This part of the library is rather empty during the abbreviated open hours on Sunday, so he’s surprised to find someone else in the Russian and Soviet history section, a woman with short red hair and a bag of books by her feet.

“Excuse me,” he says, since she’s standing right in front of the books on arts and culture. She moves out of the way without looking up from her book, but when he crouches down to look, all of the call numbers related to clowns and circuses are missing. He looks up at the book she’s paging through; it’s a biography of Oleg Popov.

“It’s quite a surprise to find someone else here researching Soviet clowns today,” he says.

She glances down at him and raises her eyebrows. “Kind of an unusual interest.”

“What do you find interesting about them?”

“Mostly how they might be evil. There’s at least one circus that definitely killed people, but I haven’t been able to find them in any of the books I’ve looked at, or online.” She snaps the book shut and takes a step backward, nearly tripping over her bag. “What the hell did you just do?”

“Er… I asked you why you’re interested in clowns.”

“Hah! You really expect me to believe you’re not one of them?”

“One of…” He looks over his shoulder, checking to make sure this section of the library is still empty, and lowers his voice. “You don’t mean the avatars, do you?”

“Avatars? Oh, G-d, is this some kind of freaky cult thing for you?”

“W-what? No, that’s just… what they’re called… A-and I’m not one! I just happen to work at a secondhand book store, so I know some things.”

She narrows her eyes at him, as if squinting just right will reveal the lie. “Right. Because everyone who works in a used bookstore is magic. And has secret special lingo for magic murderers. You know what, actually, why not? That might as well be true. Doesn’t mean you didn’t just do some kind of truth spell or something on me.”

Truth spell? He looks at her blankly. He would know if he did a truth spell. It’s not like you can use the Powers without doing some sort of ritual. “I _didn’t_ ,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on any more than you do. But I, er, I’m interested in the circus for the same reason. Because they’re planning something big.” He feels absurd as he says it, because he isn’t even planning on stopping the Unknowing. He’s just curious. It seemed reasonable when Dekker and Robinson were pushing him to work for them, but now… he’s ashamed. Especially by the way the woman’s gaze seems to sharpen, like she has a legitimate reason to need to know this.

“And why would you know?”

“What?”

“Mr. I-just-happen-to-work-in-a-bookstore doesn’t seem like the type to be in on the local evil plans. I’ve been hunting for years, so who the hell are you?”

“I—I’ve just been given some information. I think someone—”

“Of course you’ve been _given_ it,” she sneers. He blinks at her, bewildered. “Are you sure you don’t mean you pried it out of someone’s mouth with magic? Who are you working for?”

“I’m not working for anyone! She _wanted_ to hire me but I don’t want any part of it. I didn’t ask for this information, but I’m doing what I can with it. And I’m sure you could do something more useful, given your _hunting expertise_. Do you want me to tell you, or not?” This is his chance to get more information as well, if he plays his cards right.

“Fine.” She turns on her heel, hefts her bag of books, and walks away down the aisle. He hurries after her, confused, until she throws herself down in one of the chairs and looks up at him. She has the air of an executive whose time he’s wasting just by being here. He has to squash the urge to snap at her, because she’s obviously very touchy about something.

“I’m Jon, by the way.” He doesn’t quite have the courage to sit down and put himself on her level, so he leans his leg against the arm of the chair opposite her.

“Melanie,” she says. “King.”

“Oh! You’re the… you were a ghost hunter.”

“You’d better not be a _fan_ ,” she says, with more venom than he thinks that should warrant.

“No, no. I’ve only watched a few episodes.” That was years ago, before he forced himself to stop listening to Georgie’s podcast. There was a crossover episode, and he’d needed _something_ to do when no power in the world could make him sleep. It would be more accurate to say he only _remembers_ a few episodes. He has probably watched, or at least listened to, most of them.

“Well, whatever. Tell me what the circus is planning.”

“First, how much do you know… I mean, you’d never heard of avatars… so what _do_ you know?”

“I know how to tell when someone’s talking down to me,” she snaps, and then talks over his attempt at an apology. “I know that there are places that hurt people, and there are artifacts—mostly antiques—that hurt people. Once or twice I’ve met what you call avatars. The amount they look human varies a lot.”

“Really?”

She gives him a Look. “And I know there are these different domains, like, fairy courts. There’s a war one, and then there’s the circus… one that does rot and disease, you see that a lot in wartime too…”

“That’ll be the Slaughter, the Stranger, and Corruption,” says Jon. Melanie just raises her eyebrows, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest. _He’d_ appreciate being told the proper names. “There are fourteen in all. They’re sort of like fear given form. They feed off it. So the Stranger—the circus—is working on a ritual to make the world… more like itself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Er… No-one’s really been able to tell me, but I would guess… everything being uncanny, not quite right… the streets filled with mannequins. People… replaced by doppelgangers.” He clutches his own arms, feeling bizarrely like he needs to reassure himself they’re still there. “I-in a way, it’s supposed to be like the end of the world. But people stop these rituals all the time, and someone is… working on it. So I wouldn’t worry.”

“Wouldn’t worry!” Melanie says loudly, and then seems to remember to drop her voice. “You expect me to sit at home watching the telly while someone _probably_ saves the world? Is that what you’re going to do?”

“I… I don’t know. I think it’s going to be dangerous.”

“Oh, you’re right! It’s not going to be bloody dangerous if the world ends! My mistake, silly of me.”

“She keeps trying to kill me!” says Jon, and that at least shuts Melanie up. “I mean… people keep telling me she’s not doing it on purpose. But I don’t think I want to work with her, even to save the world.”

“Then don’t! I’ve got people, you know some things. Fuck whoever’s trying to kill you, help _me_ save the world.”

He stares at her, practically on fire with righteous indignation. With purpose. “Yeah… yes, all right,” he says, surprised to hear himself say it. “I’ll help you save the world.”

“Have you got anything else to be doing this afternoon?”

“I was just going to be doing research, I suppose.”

“Great, then check out your books and come with me. Georgie’s going to want to know everything.”

“You’re working with _Georgie_? Wh—is this some kind of conspiracy that everyone who does shows about ghosts is in on?”

“You know her?” A slow grin creeps onto Melanie’s face. “Oh my G-d, you’re _that_ Jon, aren’t you? Georgie’s gonna flip!”

“I-I don’t think she wants to see me,” says Jon. He’s caught between getting up and making a run for it with his books, and… well, seeing Georgie again. Even if she does despise him.

“And who’s the expert in what Georgie wants? You, who hasn’t talked to her in seven years? Get up, come on.”

It’s much too hot to be walking anywhere, especially carrying upwards of ten pounds of books. Melanie is as sweaty and red-faced as he is, but she walks with a lot more energy. She’s practically _bouncing_ , which isn’t the response he would expect to being told that the world might end this year. He stares at her back, half admiring and half hating her, and tries to convince himself that he’ll spend more time exercising in the future. It doesn’t work. Jonathan Sims will never _work out_ when he could instead be reading, unless his life immediately depends on it.

Consequently when they arrive at their destination Jon is panting, extremely red, and his hair is straggling forward to stick to his face and drip onto his glasses. He leans back against the wall outside the flat where Melanie is knocking on the door, feeling vaguely guilty that he’s probably soaking the wall in sweat. Only when the door opens does he remember who they’re here to see. Georgie Barker is standing in the doorway, looking clean and certain of herself and frankly very beautiful in her sweatpants and lightly mutilated tee shirt. “Melanie, you look like you ran a marathon! Is it disgusting out there? I thought you said you were bringing someone.”

Jon straightens up, and Georgie looks around at him. It’s clear she doesn’t recognize him for a moment, so he raises an awkward hand and says, “Hello, Georgie.”

“Jon? I can’t believe it—where did you find him? I’m not going to hug you right now, you’re kind of disgusting—but, come in, you must be parched, both of you.” She runs inside, leaving Jon and Melanie to follow her. Jon hovers just inside the door, in the full knowledge that if he takes off his shoes as Georgie prefers he’ll be committing to stay here.  

When she comes back and gives him an iced tea and his feet a filthy look, he has to take them off anyway.

“Did you get a new phone just so I wouldn’t be able to call you?” she asks. He can’t answer that without lying, so he pretends to be very preoccupied with drinking his tea. “Honestly, Jon. Well, I’ve got you now, so would you please sit down and stop looking like I’m going to kill you?” He sinks reluctantly into her sofa, trying to ignore Melanie grinning at him over the rim of her glass. “You’re so dramatic,” says Georgie. “And Melanie, stop smirking. Your schadenfreude is showing.”

Georgie disappears into the kitchen again, leaving Melanie to continue smirking as she drapes herself sideways over an armchair. Jon does his best to ignore her, with the surprising aid of the Admiral. Normally Jon would remark on how large he is—he hasn’t seen this cat since it was about eight ounces of grey fluff—but with Melanie watching he has to pretend mild disinterest. He’s saved when Georgie returns with a plate of crackers and sits down in the other chair, across the table from Jon. It makes him feel a bit like he’s at a job interview. With a cat. “I’d ask how you got mixed up in all this supernatural stuff,” she says, “but I kind of feel it’s obvious.”

“Says he works in a secondhand book shop and that’s why,” Melanie comments. “Can you use your identification thing on him?”

Georgie rolls her eyes. “Does he _look_ dead to you?”

“Well, you never know. And you’ve got the claustrophobia one too.”

“You don’t need me to identify those ones, Melanie. They’re always leaking dirt everywhere.”

“You don’t know that, you’ve only met—”

“Will someone _please_ tell me what’s going on?” says Jon. Georgie and Melanie begin to talk over each other—he _shouldn’t_ be able to understand either of them, but he can hear them both.

“Georgie can do this thing where she sometimes knows those murder people—avatars if you like—on sight, and sometimes we use it to figure out who to stay away from and/or plot to kill.”

“I almost died twice and now I can tell when someone’s working for specific ones of these supernatural courts, do you know about those? They basically just have different ways of hurting people.” She glances at Melanie, who’s just finished talking and is now glaring at Jon. “Another thing that’s going on is you might be one of them.”

“I think I would know!”

“Stick out your tongue,” Georgie commands. He frowns at her. He’s not sticking out his tongue. “There’s something wrong with it! Don’t be childish.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my tongue.”

“The more you protest the more humiliating this will be,” says Melanie, still smirking. Jon sticks out his tongue at her, pointedly, and feels a bit like a gargoyle. Especially when she nearly spills tea on herself. “What the hell!”

“What?” asks Jon.

“You’ve got a silver tongue.”

Since nobody has ever accused Jonathan Sims of being good with words, he has to assume Melanie means literally. He touches the tip of it to his finger, but it feels like it always has, and he still can taste the salt of his sweat.

“You don’t _just_ work at a bookstore,” says Georgie, threat implicit.

“I…” Jon doesn’t quite manage to repress the urge to look over his shoulder at the door. He can’t meet Georgie’s eyes, either, so he looks down into his tea. “I might know… how it happened. Due to, er, extenuating circumstances, I met a physical embodiment… of Beholding. The fear of being watched.” Melanie makes a sort of “ugh!” noise and throws her hand in the air. “It touched me. It may have… decided to give me a gift. For its own purposes, whatever those might be. That’s one of the reasons I was at the library, to find out whether this has happened to anyone else.”

“So let me get this straight,” says Melanie, in a way that makes him think she’s about to tangle everything worse with malice aforethought. “This Beholding of yours, which _is_ evil and _does_ kill people, likes you enough that it decided to give you a present, and the present is mind control powers and a weird tongue. And this means we should trust you instead of killing you right now.”

“Melanie,” says Georgie.

“You asked me to come here,” Jon points out. He shifts uneasily in his seat, aware that she probably _could_ kill him if she decided to, and he wouldn’t be able to get away.

“Look, Jon’s a really bad liar. He’s not a killer. I believe he really didn’t know about this until just now. Although that doesn’t excuse his stupidity.”

“What stupidity?”

“I don’t know what the ‘extenuating circumstances’ are, but I do know you, Jon.”

Jon sips his tea gloweringly. Melanie laughs at him.

And the process of interrogation begins all over again.

 

By seven o’clock the crackers are gone, the flat is filled with the smell of stew, and Melanie has allowed Georgie to convince her that Jon is merely a liability and not an enemy agent. They’re all reading, which  for the two of them consists of roughly fifty per cent actual reading and fifty per cent pointing out interesting or funny bits of the text. Jon points out nothing except to his notebook, to fill it up with stories at best tangentially related to Beholding and at worst entirely made up. Every so often Georgie asks him whether he’s found anything, no doubt trying to encourage him to join in the game, and he murmurs, “Nothing conclusive.” He’d never admit it, but he likes the background chatter. It makes him feel more purposeful; surrounded by purpose.

A shadow passes over his book, and he looks up. “Dinner’s ready,” says Georgie. He nods and looks back down. “Nope. Jonathan Sims, you are going to eat with the rest of us. And no reading at the dinner table.”

“What are you, my grandmother?”

“If that’s what it takes,” says Georgie, and snatches his notebook. “Let’s see… oh, you were holding out on us. This is interesting.”

He stands to chase after her, feeling a bit like she’s one of the cruel young men who used to steal his books. “Give that back,” he says, rather hopelessly.

“Did you know, Melanie, there was a guy in 1978 who did a… wow, a quite gruesome ritual to try and scry someone he hated? Oh, but it’s apocryphal. I wonder if the arrest record is public.”

“So scrying is, like, real?” says Melanie, who is trying to taste the stew and keeps burning herself.

“I’m quite sure Elias can do it,” Jon offers. He goes automatically to the cupboard to start setting out places at the table. “He seems to have a bit of a reputation for knowing things no-one else does.”

“If you’re going to be an evil wizard you might as well learn to scry,” says Melanie. “Ow! It’d be dead useful.”

“Just _blow_ on it,” Georgie snaps. “And Jon, you don’t have to learn to scry if you don’t want to. Even though I know you do. In fact, I think you shouldn’t.”

“You don’t want to know when the Unknowing is going to happen? And where?”

“I don’t want you to finish transforming into an avatar! You’re fine the way you are, I’d rather have Jon Sims than a creepy eyeball person who knows everything about the way the world is going to end.”

“I could go either way,” says Melanie, and laughs when Georgie whacks her gently upside the head. “Seriously, though, I’d rather not know any creepy eyeball people, especially if Georgie won’t let me kill you. I’m pretty sure there are other ways to find this stuff out. Why don’t you get someone else to scry for you? Ask this Elias. He doesn’t want the world to end, does he?”

“Oh!” says Jon. He actually hadn’t thought of that. “There are a few people I could ask, I suppose. I don’t want to bother them at dinner time on a Sunday, though,” he adds in reply to Melanie’s pointed look.

“Where do you work,” Melanie asks. “We could come and bother you during business hours.”

“ _Please_ just text me.”

 

Jon doesn’t know why he has the impulse to keep Georgie and Melanie a secret. It seems important. He wants to have  something of his own. He’s petty. It’s necessary. There’s been too much mixing going on of late.

He goes to visit Gerard personally before work on Monday, preempting Melanie’s text that afternoon. There’s a note taped to the door that reads, _Door is unlocked. Come up and lock it behind you_. He wonders whether Gerard is expecting someone today, and nearly leaves, but it would be a shame after he’s come all this way…

“Hallo, Jon,” Gerard calls out as he’s starting the stairs. Oh. Gerard was expecting _him_ , despite the fact that he didn’t call. He’s not sure whether it’s sweet or creepy. “I didn’t want to  have to get up and unlock the door for you,” Gerard tells him when the office comes into view. “D’you want any tea? Promise it won’t kill you.”

“So long as it’s not jasmine.”

“The kitchen’s through there and the water’s hot, you can just pick something.” He seems to be busy scribbling down a great deal of text in cramped, loopy cursive, so Jon goes through to look around in the kitchen. It clearly wasn’t meant to be a kitchen at all; it’s carpeted and wallpapered in dark reds just like the office, making the white tiled counters, small refrigerator, and cheap plasterboard cupboards feel extremely out of place. There’s an actual cast iron stove sitting on a piece of slate in the corner, and Jon can see where a hole was sawed into the ceiling to accommodate its smoke pipe. The kettle and a basket of loose tea in unlabelled plastic bags are sitting on the slate as well. He chooses his tea by smell, something he thinks has chamomile and some other herbs that he can’t identify.

When he wanders back into the office Gerard looks up sharply and says, “Here, let me smell that.” Jon does, rather bewildered, and Gerard waves a hand. “Thought for a moment I’d missed one of the poison ones. That’s all right, though.”

“Er…”

“That was how she preferred to kill people,” says Gerard gloomily. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to.”

Jon drinks, mostly to demonstrate trust. It’s quite good.

“So, what was it you wanted?”

“You don’t know?”

Gerard laughs. “I can’t see the future, Jon. I knew you were coming because I saw you get on the train going the wrong way.” The smile slides off his face and he twists his mouth pensively. “I wasn’t watching you. I think our patron just has a bit of a flair for the dramatic.”

“ _Our_ …?”

“Oh,” says Gerard, looking suddenly almost queasy. “Yeah. That’s new. Look, have you considered not…”

Jon waits for him to finish the sentence, but he doesn’t seem to be able to find anything reasonable to say. “It’s not really practical,” says Jon finally. “I’ve actually sort of… been recruited into a second project to stop the Unknowing. An old friend. She suggested I ask some of my, er, clairvoyant contacts where and when it’s going to be. So that I wouldn’t have to learn scrying.”

“You sound like a hippie witch,” says Gerard distractedly, and then he sighs. “Course I’ll help. I dunno how much good it’ll do, though. It’s not easy to look at the Stranger. You read that thing about the last Unknowing in seventeen-whatever, try to imagine looking in at that and actually being able to make sense of it. But I’ll try. Ask me what you want to know.”

“Where is the Unknowing going to take place?” Jon asks. He’s very conscious of his tongue.

Gerard closes his eyes and leans back into his chair. There’s a long pause, during which his face twitches subtly like tiny expressions are running quickly across it, his eyes swivelling wildly under their eyelids. Then he says, “Breekon and Hope have been making a lot of deliveries to the wax museum in Yarmouth.”

“How close are they to being ready?”

Gerard is quiet for much longer this time, and most of the expressions his face twitches into look like pain. He begins to grimace, and finally leans over onto his elbows, clutching his head. “I… I-I dunno. They’ve been taking deliveries for nearly a year now. I can’t look at it any longer. Sorry.”

“It’s already a lot more than we had. Er, is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah… um, can you get me some coffee? It should be somewhere in the tea basket. Helps with headaches, a bit.”

Jon hurries to look for it. All he finds is instant coffee, which he supposes must be it. He stirs some into hot water and returns to the office, where Gerard starts gulping it down.

“If it’s anything like a migraine, you won’t want to be looking at anything. If there’s something you need to read…”

“You’ve got to be at work, haven’t you?” says Gerard, still cradling his head in his hands.

“Well, yes, but it’s not like I’m paid by the hour, and I don’t want to… just come here and give you a headache and then leave.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Gerard mumbles into his hands. “But you need to _get out_.” This last he snarls with such unexpected vitriol that Jon flinches and leaves the room and his half-drunk tea without waiting to ask why.

Only on the train to work does he wonder which of them Gerard was trying to protect, and from what.

 

The rest of the day is busy; Jon’s phone never goes more than an hour without getting some new message, from Melanie and Georgie planning to surveil the wax museum or from Sasha inviting him to meet some friends of hers or from the booksellers’ listserv discussing their more esoteric customers’ growing restlessness in the absence of new Leitners.

Tim steals his phone at one point, and fortunately manages to see only Melanie’s _Sure, I’ll be there_ before Jon snatches it back. “I can’t believe this, d’you actually have _friends_? Or… girlfriends? You can’t possibly have only one, considering how they’re blowing up your phone.”

“My phone is fine,” mutters Jon, mostly out of a refusal to acknowledge that he knows what that idiom means. “And I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I’ve noticed, yeah. I’m honestly not sure why, you do a really good hipster look. D’you think it puts them off when they find out you’re literally just a grandfather and you don’t dress like that to be cool?”

“Who does it put off, Tim? In the small amounts of free time when I’m not trying to figure out why the world is full of evil magic, do you imagine that I’m going clubbing?”

Tim begins laughing, and seems to forget how to stop, until he’s slumped over the counter, wheezing for breath.

Jon returns to the back room.

Later in the afternoon, near closing time, a strange customer comes in. Jon pays it no mind at first, but when Tim’s raised voice drifts back to him he peeks around the doorway to look. It’s a broad woman with short hair, ignoring Annie winding around her legs to lean over the counter toward Tim. Jon can smell smoke—not cigarette smoke, but wood smoke. “Which means I’m starting to get a bit annoyed,” she’s saying. “Burning down your little shop would be a good time, yeah, but I’d much rather see your boss.”

“Look, I’ll call him, just stop—you’re not even tall enough to loom. But get off the counter.”

The woman leans further forward, and small flames play around where her arms touch the wood. “Better make that call quick, then,” she says.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Jon asks the woman.

She stops smiling as she looks around at him. “My name’s Jude Perry. I’m with _Desolation_.” This last she says with what Jon feels is inappropriate lasciviousness. “I want to talk to the oracle, don’t I? Figure out why everyone’s running around like a kicked-over anthill. Leitners have stopped coming in, but there’s got to be a stockpile somewhere.”

“He was making them, and he can’t any more,” Jon tells her. “There must be an easier way to find out who his executor is than asking Elias.

“ _Making_ them?” says Jude. “You’re some kind of baby oracle, aren’t you? Silver tongue and all,” she snarls. “Maybe if you don’t ask any more questions I won’t rip it out of your head. As a token of my appreciation.”

“ _Hello, Tim,_ ” says Elias’ tinny voice over the phone. “ _Would you please put me on speaker so that Ms. Perry can hear this as well?_ ” Tim, looking rather upset about all of this, does so. “Thank you, Tim. Now, Ms. Perry, would you be interested in meeting me at a third location? I’m afraid that if you wait in the shop for much longer you’ll set something on fire. A nice café, perhaps? I’d like to remind you that if you do burn down Magnus Books I won’t tell you anything. Safer for both of us this way.”

“Don’t put thoughts in my head,” Jude snaps. “Fine, I’ll come to your café. But don’t be surprised if you end up a little charred. You’re really getting on my nerves.” She turns on her heel, nearly trips over Annie, and kicks her, hard, into a bookshelf before slamming the door open and vanishing.

Jon rushes over to kneel by Annie. She was just trying to be _friendly_. “Are you all right?” he murmurs. His hands hover over her heaving side, unsure if it’s all right to touch her. “Dammit, I don’t know anything about animal injuries.”

Annie is still well enough to purr, at least. Tim crouches down too and glares down at her. “I hope Elias does something awful to her.” Gently he touches Annie’s side, and when she doesn’t seem to be in pain he feels all her legs. “I can’t find anything wrong with her. Here, I’m gonna pick you up.” He gathers Annie into his arms, still purring loudly. She seems to be more liquid than usual, as if she might drip right through his grasp and onto the floor. “You really mastered rolling with the punches, huh, Annie? I bet you’re not even hurt. I bet you just love when people fuss over you. You want some water?”

Jon takes that as his cue to go and get some. When he returns with her bowl she’s lying on the counter belly-up, lazily chewing on Tim’s fingers. “I honestly think she’s fine,” Tim tells him. “I bet it was like trying to injure a pudding. Thanks for helping chase her away, Annie. I consider your contributions vital. Ow. Less of the teeth, please.”

Jon takes over getting bitten to save Tim from it, and thinks about why Annie was so friendly toward a woman who came her specifically to threaten them, and clearly wasn’t an animal person. But Mike Crew, a monthly murderer; that worm woman who Jon was afraid would infect her; Gerard Keay, a man so frightening he’s never had a friend before—Annie seems to adore avatars indiscriminately, anyone saturated with the Powers of Fear. Georgie has the power to detect some kinds of avatars, but Jon has the feeling Annie could put her to shame.

Ow. Less of the teeth, please.


	8. Chapter 8

It seems absurd to go to Sasha’s for board game night two days before staking out a world-ending ritual, but she is insistent that he has to have fun at some point. Jon rather doubts the fun content of board game night. Worse yet, she’s trying to get him to _meet new people_ ; when he arrives Sasha is chatting with a woman who introduces herself as Danielle, and who Jon probably puts off by not being able to smile convincingly. He wanders into the kitchen with some vague excuse, because even at a party that currently consists of three people his domain is _hanging out nervously in the kitchen_. He looks in the refrigerator for anything that could reasonably be considered an hors d’oeuvre, hoping to justify why he’s here. There’s a pitcher of punch, which he thankfully removes and sets on the counter.

“Hallo,” says someone behind him. He jumps slightly and turns around. “Oh! Sorry to startle you. Are you a friend of Sasha’s, then?”

The man’s wide mouth and bulging eyes remind Jon unpleasantly of the Stranger, but that’s hardly his fault. “Er, yes. I’m Jon. Sims.” He extends a hand to shake, but the man just smiles down at it as if he’s being shown something mildly confusing and is trying to be polite about it.

“That’s wonderful,” says the man. He stands in silence. Jon realizes far too late that he should have said something, and racks his brains.

“Yes,” he says. “It, uh, is. She’s nice.” The man laughs. It makes Jon’s head hurt for some reason. Frankly the man’s irritating voice is not helping him concentrate on trying to seem personable, and Jon tries not to resent him for that. “What’s your name?” he tries.

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” says the man cheerfully, and drifts back into the sitting room. Jon turns his back and starts hunting for glasses to put the punch in. Of course all of Sasha’s friends are weird. She’s friends with _Jon_ , isn’t she? Even after finding out what he’s mixed up in?

When he returns to the sitting room with glasses and punch, the man with the wide mouth is perched on the arm of Sasha’s chair, observing her conversation with Basira and Danielle. Sasha looks around and brightens when she sees Jon. “That’s all of us, then! Thanks, Jon. Also, if anyone wants hard drinks I have some really nice gin I’ve been saving for something special.”

“Little early in the night for that, isn’t it?” asks Danielle. “At least give us some snacks so it doesn’t look too much like you’re just trying to get us drunk.”

Sasha laughs and goes to look for snacks. Jon sits down on the sofa next to Basira, feeling like it was a terrible mistake to come here. Can he fake enjoying… ‘Betrayal at the House on the Hill’? Good Lord, that sounds a bit grim. He picks up the instructions and starts reading through them. Not only is it grim, but it sounds uncomfortably familiar. Sasha must find it amusing.

The game is set up and explained; everyone chooses player tokens; Sasha and Danielle are chatting happily. At some point the man whose name Jon still doesn’t know has sat down next to him. When it’s his turn Sasha leans forward, waving a hand in front of his face, and says, “Michael? Michael, it’s your go.”

“Oh!” says Michael with a wide, beatific smile. “That’s lovely. How do you play?”

Sasha explains the rules all over, because clearly Michael wasn’t paying attention the first time. It’s an all right game, really, although everyone else is much better at putting themselves into it than Jon is. He prefers books, which don’t ask anything of him except to observe them. Although it does feel good to demonstrate his makebelieve competence.

“Yes!” Sasha cries. “Oh, I love being the traitor. I am the Worm Ouroboros, the devourer of worlds! Or I will be, once I make it out of this house. I’ll be back, you lot.”

Jon exchanges a look with Basira: she amused, he skeptical of the appropriateness of celebrating becoming an enormous worm. “It’s a _game_ , Jon,” she says. “She can be a world-devouring worm if she wants.”

“I would like to be a worm,” says Michael. “I enjoy being long.”

“You be long with me, baby,” Danielle sings. “We be long together.” She laughs, and Michael sits watching her with his everpresent smile. He makes Jon uneasy, but Jon isn’t sure exactly why. He doesn’t… he doesn’t understand. There’s something he’s missing about why Michael is like he is, the way Michael interacts with the other people here. It niggles at him. To cover his confusion he reads the scenario aloud, dramatically. Danielle claps for him, and he manages a bow.

It’s a disjointed evening. He doesn’t know why he is here. He doesn’t understand the purpose of the game. He doesn’t understand Sasha’s friends. Near the climax of the game, as all the characters are desperately hacking at the heads of the Worm Ouroboros, Jon tips back his glass to get the last of his punch and catches sight of Michael through it. And he _knows_ that what he’s seeing is real. A twisting of a man, a grotesque stretched _thing_ that looks too much like his own doppelganger. Is Michael haunted too, by something he cannot get rid of?

Nobody has noticed Jon’s trembling as he puts down the glass on his lap; they’re too busy cheering Basira on as she rolls her dice. Except for Michael, who is looking at Jon with a smile that is far too wide to fit on his face. He turns away when Danielle calls for him to take his turn, quick, kill the Worm! His hair seems to move even when he is still, curling smaller and smaller into single points. It didn’t do that before. Either Jon has gotten better at seeing in the last thirty seconds, or Michael is showing him this now, to taunt him.

Michael kills the Worm. Jon stares through Sasha as she gives a dramatic dying speech, and everyone applauds. Basira and Sasha go to start on dinner; after a few minutes chatting with Michael Danielle joins them. Then it’s just Jon and… and _something_ on the sofa with him. When he looks out of the corner of his eye Michael is looking directly at him, smiling.

“What are you?” Jon asks, trying to put all the silver he has into the question.

“I’m a friend of Sasha’s. It’s nice to meet you.” Michael grips his hand, and Jon recoils, trying to pull away. Michael’s hand is—not a hand. It’s heavy and sharp and filled with something that is not flesh. Whatever is inside clicks and grinds together as Michael squeezes tight enough to make Jon gasp in pain. “I’ve heard so many stories about you!” says Michael. His tone hasn’t changed from the dreamy excitement he’s been showing all evening. “Sasha told me how you started working at Magnus Books. I thought that was very interesting. That’s the shop that burned down when someone got too nosy for her own good!”

“W-what do you know about the shop burning down?”

Michael laughs. Jon’s head throbs. “Nothing! I don’t know a single thing about anything! Knowledge isn’t real.”

“What are you talking about?” Jon stands angrily, but when Michael unfolds himself up off the sofa he’s much, much taller than Jon.

“I’m not sure! Your job, maybe? Do you enjoy it? I enjoy mine.”

“Your—what is your job?”

“The throat of delusion. It… ‘takes me to all sorts of exciting places.’” He says this last as if he’s quoting something.

Jon clutches his head and looks away, frustrated. He has this time alone with an avatar, someone who _knows_ things, but it’s impossible to get any answers out of him. “You’re with… the…” His head is spinning. “The Spiral…”

The last thing he hears is Michael thoughtfully murmuring, “I wouldn’t say _with_ …” before he… well, there’s no sound any more. He thinks he might be dreaming. He hopes he’s dreaming. He tries to ask another question, but when he moves his mouth it’s his feet that start moving instead. He’s walking toward a yellow door behind Sasha’s television, but the heavy black squatting thing twists out of the way. His hand hesitates on the handle, but then it’s open, and he’s walked through into Sasha’s kitchen. Sound assaults him from every side at once. When did he sit at the table? He looks down at his plate of food, which he’s clearly been eating from. It’s nearly empty.

Gradually the noise resolves into words; Danielle is leaving. “Hey Jon?” says a voice. Sasha’s? “Jon, are you there?” A hand gently smacks his cheek and Sasha says, “Basira!”

“What? He’s not hurt. He almost looks like he’s paying attention.”

Jon considers opening his mouth to speak, and then he continues considering it to make sure he doesn’t accidentally kick something. Cautiously he opens his mouth. “Yes?” he croaks.

“Are you all right?”

Jon looks around the room for any evidence of Michael. “Is he gone?”

“Who, Michael? Yeah, he never stays for dinner. The first couple times we hung out he was too polite to say anything, but I think he has a lot of allergies or something. I actually asked if there was a way I could make food he’d be able to eat and he just laughed and told me no. So I don’t think he’s mad about it or anything. Why d’you ask?”

“Sasha, he’s not normal.”

“Of course he’s not. There’s no need to be rude about it. I’d think that you, of all people…”

“What do you mean, me of all people?”

“Well, you’re… aren’t you?”

He feels like something cold and heavy has dropped into his stomach. How could she know that? “Not _yet_ ,” he says, almost pleading with her.

“Not… yet? Okay, I actually have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sorry for dancing around the subject, I mean I think Michael has some sort of intellectual disability. And you’re being really rude about it.”

“He’s an avatar of the Spiral!”

Sasha stops, frowning at him. “I’ve known him for five years. He’s just a person, Jon.”

“Then how do you explain… He shook my hand, and his hand was like… a leather bag full of sharp rocks. His laugh… And he did something to me. What’s his work, Sasha? Has he told you?” Jon really does want the answer to be that he’s an accountant or a checkout clerk at a supermarket or something. He would rather all this was another strange curse put on him by Gertrude to punish him for something.

“Hang on, I’m sure he’s said at some point… um…”

“Because he told _me_ that his job was ‘the throat of delusion.’ And he seemed very interested in Magnus burning down.” Sasha doesn’t seem to have an answer to that, standing with a dishcloth in her hand and her mouth slightly open. “Bring him to the shop. I want to see what Annie thinks of him.”

“Annie?”

“The cat. She has an instinct for avatars. Please, Sasha. If he’s not one, this won’t do any harm. If he is, it might be dangerous for you to spend time with him.”

“It’s a solid idea,” says Basira. She puts a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Sasha.”

“Yeah. Yeah, all right. I’ll text him and say I’m going to visit your shop tomorrow and he can come if he wants to see it.”

“Thank you.”

 

Annie seems to like Michael so much that she’s already in his arms when he walks in the door. Or at least Jon thinks so. When he heard the bell ring and Sasha called out his name from the door, Annie was sitting on one of the open books on the table. He got up and walked into the front, and there she was, purring in Michael’s arms.

“Isn’t she the sweetest?” Sasha says to Jon with a triumphant smile. “Look how much she likes him!”

Jon looks at her grimly and shakes his head just the tiniest amount. Her smile falters and she looks at him uncertainly. They both look around when Martin speaks.

“ _Michael_? You’re—you’re _friends_ with Sasha?”

“Yes! Have we met? I never remember a face.”

Martin sounds almost angry for the first time Jon can remember. “It’s Martin. We—you used to—visit. Before you died.”

“Martin Blackwood,” says Michael, drifting forward toward the counter where Martin is now standing up. “I have never died. Neither has Michael Shelley. What happened to us was far worse.”

“Well, I had no way of knowing, because you didn’t tell me! I wasn’t even sure whether you’d come back for the first _six months_! _Gertrude_ wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Michael?” asks Sasha. He turns to look at her, still smiling vaguely. “Are you… are you _actually_ an avatar of the Spiral?”

“You didn’t know?” He laughs, and both Jon and Sasha clutch their heads. “That’s quite funny. It took Silver Tongue about… well, some very short period of time to figure it out.”

“I trusted you! I thought we were friends!”

“Are we not?”

Everyone is angry at Michael, and everyone is talking at once. Jon desperately wants to tell them to shut up and let him think, but then they’ll be looking at him, expecting him to have something useful to say, and he doesn’t. He props himself against the wall and stares at them all, picking out the words from each other: Martin yelling at Michael for falling out of contact, Sasha yelling at Michael for lying, Michael laughing, _both_ of them yelling at him for not taking them seriously. A soft warm weight settles in Jon’s arms, and he closes his eyes. The argument suddenly seems far away. It’s just him and Annie in a bubble of peace. “Thank you, Annie,” he murmurs. She purrs, but he can barely feel it. He goes into the back to sit alone.

Annie’s disappeared somewhere and Jon is reading when Tim comes in. “Hey, Jon,” he says. Jon glances up for a moment and then back down to his book. “Looks like Martin’s finally made a friend. I don’t think he even noticed me come in. You know what’s up with that?”

Jon sighs. He’d much rather not talk to anyone. It’s completely pointless, empty and irritating. “I’d stay away from him. He’s with the Spiral.”

“What? No, don’t start reading again, you ass, explain what that’s about!”

“Michael, so-called, is one of Sasha’s friends. She thought he was human for, I don’t know, five years. I think Gertrude might have killed him, but before that he knew Martin. That’s all there is.”

“Are you sick or something? I can’t believe you’re not coming up with wild theories about this. Sure you don’t want to tell me about how—how he was a ritual sacrifice, or, I dunno, whatever sinister things he got up to with Gertrude? Have _you_ died?”

“Martin’s friends with a lot of avatars,” Jon mumbles. “And I’m reading. Go ask him about it if you’re curious.”

“Are you _cursed_?”

“Mm,” says Jon. Tim throws his hands in the air and retreats to the front of the shop. Thank goodness.

 

When he walks into his empty flat Jon loses all energy and sinks down onto the sofa. He stares up at the ceiling without thinking for hours until he falls asleep.

In the morning he’s forgotten all about it, and the previous day is nothing but a grayish blur.

 

On Sunday he meets Georgie and Melanie at Regent’s Park. The weather is fine, and his inner Tim observes that it really does look like he’s on a date, meeting two reasonably attractive women relaxing in a park. Jon shuts inner Tim up in a soundproof room and locks the door.

“Oh, you made it,” says Melanie. She’s fanning herself with a brochure of some kind, a cold drink sweating a circle of water into the bench beside her.

She always makes Jon feel strangely defensive.  “I’m on time.”

“Yeah, I know. You look like you ate a lemon.”

Georgie whacks her without much real energy, and then wipes the sweat off her hand onto Melanie’s shirt. “It’s good to see you, Jon. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.”

She gets up and, to his surprise, gives him a brief hug, then offers him her drink. He takes it gratefully, although he isn’t really a fan of iced coffee. “We have to drink them all up before we go into the museum anyway. I don’t think they let you bring in drinks.”

“You’re not touching mine, though,” says Melanie. She takes the lid off and starts to gulp it down. “Ahh. Don’t want your eyeball germs.”

“It’s not _infectious_ ,” he snaps. She just laughs at him. He really needs to stop responding to her needling.

“I can’t believe I thought you were dangerous,” she says, with what he feels is inappropriate relish. “You’re like a tiny angry dog.”

“Do you routinely torment dogs?”

“No, just you.”

“D’you think there’ll be any avatars at the museum?” Georgie asks. Jon is grateful for the subject change. He suspects that he’ll never win any argument with Melanie, no matter whether he’s actually right.

“Could be,” says Melanie. She turns to Jon to say, in what he thinks is supposed to be a reassuring voice, “I brought a machete.”

“You can’t bring a machete into a museum!”

“Like anyone’s worried about terrorist attacks on Madame Tussauds!”

“I mean you—” He gives Georgie an impatient look.

“Don’t expect me to tell her not to, Jon. That machete’s saved my life before. I bet you would have been glad to see it when that woman almost killed you.”

He falls silent, imagining Gertrude with a machete. It’s unfortunately very easy to picture her cold eyes, wiping the blade off on Mary’s blouse where she lies on the floor. It wouldn’t really be an improvement. Assuming Mary could have even been hurt by a machete. “What if someone sees you using it?”

“They’ll probably be too busy worrying about being attacked by evil wax figures.”

Jon doesn’t argue any further, because they’ve reached the line to get into the museum. It’s too garish to belong in this century; it makes him feel slightly unclean somehow, as if he’s entering the awful circus from Gertrude’s statement. Appropriate enough. But it means that once they’ve got in he’s on edge the whole time as they walk through. Georgie and Melanie are doing a decent impression of being interested in the statues, exclaiming how lifelike they are, taking pictures with them, making Jon take pictures of them posing. The pictures are a good idea if they’re here to case the joint, as it were, but really what they need to find is restricted areas, because the Unknowing isn’t going to take place in a cramped space like this one.

Jon wanders away from Georgie and Melanie through the labyrinth of bizarre set-dressings. He _must_ be imagining that the waxworks’ eyes are following him. They’re just… normal, slightly creepy wax replicas of famous people. He’s seeing things because he’s nervous.

He does somehow manage to get quite lost, enough that he actually asks one of the tourists which way the exit is, a woman mesmerized by what appears to be a statue of Leonardo da Vinci. She doesn’t reply, so he walks around her to see if he can catch her attention by waving. Her eyes are not focused on the statue at all, but fixed in a thousand-yard stare. Her smile is just as fixed. She’s made of wax too.

He jumps backward in alarm and looks around for anyone else he can ask, but none of the tourists are moving. He begins to run.

The whole museum is unnervingly still, silent except for his footsteps. His breath cuts his throat as he stumbles past slices of the interiors of buildings, park scenes, red carpets. He doesn’t want to look too closely at them because he has the terrible feeling that he would see their heads turning to follow him, or that the statues are getting stranger and stranger—

He rounds a corner, runs full tilt into someone, and finds himself aching on the floor in a room that isn’t so quiet. It doesn’t even occur to him to apologize, thinking he’s run into a wax figure, until a hand reaches down to him. He stares at it for a moment, and then gets up on his own. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have been running inside.”

“That’s all right,” says a man’s voice. “No harm done, eh?”

When Jon glances at his smiling face, the man seems to be looking past him. “E-exc—excuse me,” stammers Jon, and edges around the man, giving him as wide a berth as possible. The man turns to watch him in blank curiosity. Around Jon other people are moving and talking, but he’s no longer willing to assume that just because they can move they are people. With his heart pounding in his throat he walks quickly away, scanning the exhibits for anything he recognizes. But, no, he isn’t lost any more. There’s the admission desk. He just needs to find Melanie and Georgie and get out of here before something happens to _them_.

Looking desperately this way and that through all the false rooms of the gallery, he finds them watching some Americans (or waxworks with American accents, at least) getting their picture taken with the fake Queen. “Georgie, Melanie, thank goodness,” he says. They turn.

“What happened to you, Jon?” asks Georgie. “Did you run here?”

He stares. Is he imagining that she’s not quite looking at him? That her voice is a little bit off? The fakes have only gotten more convincing. “I…”

He feels sick.

“Did you get scared of the statues?” Melanie asks, raising her eyebrows. Her derisive smile is comfortingly familiar, but is it familiar enough? “Oi. Fido.”

“I’m not a dog,” he manages to say. “C-can we get out of here?”

Melanie starts to protest but Georgie says, “If you want to keep looking around you can, but I’m going to wait outside with Jon. Come on.” She puts an arm around his shoulder and steers him out the doors to sit him down at one of the empty tables outside the restaurant across the street. “What happened?” she asks, leaning forward to look into his face.

“Can you prove… that you’re real?” She looks bewildered and starts to say something, but he cuts her off. “Can you prove you’re not made of wax?”

“I mean, you can touch me if you want. I’m _not_.”

His hand gropes for the small folding knife in his pocket, and he holds it toward her. After a moment of her looking at him in horrified incomprehension he also retrieves a small bottle of hand sanitizer. “I’ll go first, if you want,” he says, and starts disinfecting the knife.

“I don’t actually want you to cut yourself just to prove you bleed. This sounds like some kind of awful metaphor.”

Nevertheless, she doesn’t stop him as he nicks the side of his wrist and shows her the blood welling up. She sighs and with obvious reluctance takes the knife from him to do the same.

She _does_ bleed. He puts a trembling hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you two doing some kind of blood pact? Isn’t it it a bit early for that?”

Jon jumps and nearly cuts himself again. “No,” says Georgie. “Jon just wants us to prove we’re not made of wax. Not sure why you’d think that, it’s not like wax statues can move.”

“They can in there.”

Melanie doesn’t even bother to clean the blade before she slices open the side of her thumb with a flourish. “There we are. What did you see?”

He tells them. Melanie begins to look grimly triumphant; Georgie just grim. “Why don’t we go and do something _nice_?” she asks. “There’s this new Hungarian place, actually, near my flat, that I’ve been meaning to try out.”

Jon lets himself be shepherded to the Hungarian place. He picks at his food and watches Georgie consume an enormous quantity of sheep’s cheese and tries to discern any trace of humanity in the waiter’s friendly smile. Melanie spends most of her time quizzing him on politics between what she insists on referring to as ‘the Fear Courts,’ which is at least a distraction.

“I know this guy who sells a lot of evil artifacts,” she tells him, “but he tries to stay out of politics, so he hasn’t been any help.”

“Er, why would you know someone who sells evil artifacts? Do you mean you’re… enemies?”

“No, no,” she says flapping an unconcerned hand. “We used to be, he got so pissed off at me for destroying his stuff, but then we made a deal that I wouldn’t destroy it until after he’d sold it. He’s a pretty good guy. Great alcohol tolerance, amazing stories.”

“Who, Mikaele?” asks Georgie. “Yeah, I like him. He’s very understanding for a sort of… underworld smuggler? Crime boss? He did almost kill me but I honestly think that was an accident, and he did buy me a drink afterward. That’s where I got that dirt people sensovision,” she adds, for Jon’s benefit.

“Mmm,” he says.

“Jon. What can we do to help? I hate to see you like this.”

“Let him sleep it off,” says Melanie. “He’ll be fine in the morning. That’s how it always is with me.”

“Melanie, I get that your thing is never, ever admitting weakness,  but it’s no really helpful right now. Jon’s not you. He’s not—tough.”

“Excuse me,” says Jon.

“Sorry, Jon, would you consider yourself tough?”

“Well, no, but—”

“See? Not everyone can just sleep it off.”

“Well, then, I’m out of ideas. Maybe you should go crazy and make one of those conspiracy stringboards.”

“Out of line!”

Jon lets them argue. It leaves him more time to look closely at the other diners. Surely a wax person wouldn’t eat? Surely… surely they couldn’t have populated an entire world with waxworks, just for him. Surely not.

 

Unfortunately that doesn’t mean _no-one_ is a waxwork.

Or. Not exactly.

He and Tim are locking up Tuesday night when someone on the street says, “And this is it, is it? Jonathan—may I call you Jonathan? I noticed you came to call the other day, and I thought it would be so rude not to return the visit! And I have some questions!”

He glances at Annie, standing up against the window as if she wants to be closer to whatever is behind him. Then he turns around.

The mannequin is still in its ringmaster costume, complete with a whip he hopes it can’t use. But it’s also wearing something new: someone’s skin has been stretched over the exposed areas of its black plastic. It’s utterly useless as a disguise, more like decoration. Bile rises in his throat, but he swallows it down.

“What the fuck,” says Tim.

“H-how do you know my name?”

“If I heard right, this is the last place Gertrude Robinson was seen before she died! I thought that was very exciting, seeing as HER CORPSE WAS A FAKE. And I said to myself, Nikola, I said, you know who would know where she went?”

“Not her business partner, certainly,” says Jon.

“Yes, I did say that to myself. And then I said, I’m sure the last person to see her alive would be able to tell me something! Especially since he’s a little eyeball in training! So here I am, and here you are!”

Faintly Tim’s phone rings in the silence, trying to connect. Nikola turns its faceless head as if to look at Tim. “ _Yes, Tim?_ ” says Elias. He sounds irritated.

“H-hey, boss. Since you got us out of the last one so neatly, I thought it was worth asking. You wouldn’t want to have to find two new employees, right?” Tim’s voice is shaking. His hands probably are too, but Jon won’t take his eyes off Nikola to look.

“ _I don’t know what exactly you think I can do to help you_ ,” says Elias. He might have said more, but the whip flies forward and dashes the phone out of Tim’s hand. It crunches under Nikola’s heeled boot.

“None of that! Just answer my questions, Jonathan—may I _call_ you Jonathan?—and there’s very little chance I’ll skin both of you!”

“You—you take people’s skin?” says Tim hoarsely. Far from shrinking away from Nikola now, he’s looking down at it with clenched fists. “And you’re with… the circus.”

“Why, yes!”

“You ever been to Covent Garden?”

“I’ve played in so many places. You must be such a fan to remember!”

“2013.”

Nikola laughs. “Oh, I know what you’re talking about! That was before I was me. You know, I never would have remembered you if you didn’t point it out!”

“Tim?” Jon asks.

In one shockingly quick motion Tim lunges forward and pulls Nikola’s head right off the body with the _pop_ of plastic pieces separating, and hurls it away. “You son of a bitch!” he screams, and goes to take off one of its arms too. But it grips his wrists and twists hard, forcing him over to the side until his hands are held behind his back.

“You’re just asking to become a dancer!” says Nikola’s cheerful voice, from the place where its head no longer is. “Now, if you hold still, I won’t have to break anything before you slip out of that skin!”

“LIKE HELL!” Tim roars. But he’s clearly not as strong as Nikola; it doesn’t feel pain or fear, and he’s only human. Jon needs to do _something_ , but he’s not exactly a martial arts expert. Think! What neutralizes the Stranger?

“O Jesus Christ,” he blurts out. “I’m hit, he said, and died.”

“What?” Tim spits, now wrestling Nikola’s hand away from his face where it seems to be trying to pluck out his eye. “Is this really the fucking time to be prophesying my death?”

“Whether he cursed vainly or prayed indeed, the bullets chirped, ‘In vain! In vain! In vain!’ Machineguns chuckled—tut-tut! Tut-tut! And the Big Gun guffawed.” If nothing else, it distracts Nikola for a moment as it tries to figure out what he’s doing, and Tim manages to get its right arm off at the elbow and shake it out of its sleeve to fling it away. “Another sighed—‘Oh Mother! Mother! Dad!’ Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead. And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud leisurely grinned—Fool! And the splinters spat, and tittered.”

Nikola has finally realized why he’s reciting poetry, and is trying to throw itself out of Tim’s grip toward him. He jumps backward away from it as it snarls, “That’s not very nice, Silver Tongue!”

“‘My love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood, till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud. And—and the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned; rabbles of Shell hooted and groaned; and the Gas hissed.”

“Not… very nice… at all…” says Nikola, as if through gritted teeth. It’s now totally armless, one sleeve hanging empty and the other ripped off, and Tim is sitting on it wrestling with the joint of its hip. John stands there over them, breathing heavily. He can’t believe that actually worked. “All I wanted was a little information, but you just couldn’t be civil! I wasn’t even _going_ to kill you!”

“Y-yeah? Well… you don’t get much of a say any more.”

“Stop wasting time taunting it,” Tim snarls. “How do we _kill_ it?”

“Let me think. Just—give me a moment to think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google maps could not tell me about a TOWN called Yarmouth, that or I'm very stupid which is likely, and also suggested that there is literally one wax museum in the country (which to be fair is near Yarmouth Road). So it's Madame Tussauds. The idea that it is canonically this but Jonny refuses to name it is very funny to me.


	9. Chapter 9

After three or four tries, Jon has given up telling Annie not to sit on the torso of the disassembled mannequin now lying on the floor of the shop, and now he’s just staring at the pieces to make sure they don’t start to move. At least it’s stopped talking for now.

The back door opens and Tim comes in. “All burned up,” he says. “Not that I get why it matters. I don’t think the skin was part of him.”

“That was one of my favorites,” mutters Nikola.

“You keep saying _him_. You’ve met it before.”

Tim sighs and throws himself down into the chair opposite Jon. “Yeah, I have. You ever wonder why my brother never comes down to visit any more?”

“What? I mean… I thought he was busy, I suppose.”

“In 2013 Danny got really into urban exploration. The last place he went was Covent Garden. Well, _under_ the opera house. See, it was built on top of something older, after the part of the second one that was aboveground burned down. Smirke designed that one. Laid the foundations of your auction house, too. He made a second opera house under the first one, I guess for things like _these_ to play in.” He kicks part of Nikola’s leg. “Danny went in there. He came back out again, almost. Or… I dunno if it was him. It looked like him, except that my brother never cried. I told him to get some sleep, but in the morning he was gone. When I went in to look for him there was… he wasn’t there. Just som—” Tim squeezes his eyes shut and hunches into himself. “Just something wearing his skin. And this thing, this _Nikola_ , only back then it was Grimaldi the clown.”

“Tim, Grimaldi’s been dead for—”

“Would you shut up? It was a ghost place. Ghost clown. Who fucking cares? All I know is my brother’s dead and this is what did it. So as soon as you get off your ass and tell me _how_ , I’m going to destroy it.”

“All right. All right. I’ll ask Gerry.” Jon fumbles out his phone and pulls up his contacts list.

“Gerry? You don’t mean Gerard Keay, do you? You really have been making—” He stops as Jon’s phone starts ringing. “Did he really just call you exactly as you were about to call him? That’s proper spooky.”

Jon shakes his head, and answers. “Hello, Elias. We’re a bit busy at the moment.”

“I’m sure you are, Jon. However, since as Tim says I’m not especially keen to lose two employees, I thought it prudent to warn you to leave the shop.”

“What? Why?”

“Nikola’s absence has been noticed. The Couriers are on their way with the coffin.”

“ _What_? What coffin? Who are the Couriers?”

“Jon, this is not the time. Please gather up your pieces and find somewhere secure until you can burn them. Preferably not on my property, as I expect they’ll do some amount of damage trying to get at you.”

“Er—Tim, Tim, pack up all the pieces, tie them in a bundle or something, can you think of somewhere we can hide?”

“Fuck, I dunno. Public place? They wouldn’t attack us in a—in a bar, would they?”

“Hiding from the Stranger among strangers,” says Elias, with a smile in his voice. “If you think that’s wise. I’ll let you go now, but one last piece of advice—don’t open the coffin.”

“Why would we—oh, he’s hung up. Annie, would you _please_?” He scoops her up to get her out of Tim’s way as he bundles up the plastic limbs and ties them into the ripped ringmaster’s coat. She meows at him. “You’re not coming with us.”

“Jon, shut up, she doesn’t speak English. We need to _go_.”

Jon hastily locks the back door behind them and follows Tim, who’s nearly running with the bundle of plastic slung over his back. He’s much, much better at running than Jon is, and keeps stopping to look around while Jon catches up. “I don’t suppose Elias could have been wrong?” he asks, the third or fourth time.

“I h… hah… I hear he’s… not often wrong. They call him… the Oracle. So I’d say… better safe than sorry…”

“Fine. Would it kill you to do some cardio once in a while? Have you ever actually run anywhere?”

Jon walks past him, and he starts jogging again.

 

“Right, okay, here we are. Most disreputable pub I could think of. They ought not to ask why we’ve got a collection of mannequin parts.”

“I’m _right_ here, you know,” says Nikola’s muffled, reproachful voice.

“Yeah,” Tim snarls, “I find it kind of hard to forget. I could just burn you. Build a bonfire and throw you on piece by piece. I think that’d put an end to most things.”

“It would be so inconvenient. Not to mention uncivil.”

Jon looks around one last time for any pursuit before pushing the door open and going inside.

They get a table in the back of the pub, where they can see the front and back entrances. And since it’s late anyway, they order dinner. Tim gets more beers than Jon thinks advisable, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to talk to this new, furious Tim, so they eat in dour silence, surrounded by the comforting chatter of other patrons.

“ ‘m going to the toilet,” Tim mutters. He stands and hefts Nikola over his shoulder again.

“You’re really going to bring that thing with you?”

“I’m not letting it out of my sight. Not that I don’t trust you. I just want to do this. I want _me_ to be able to do this. For him.”

Jon nods and goes back to picking at his food, nursing his beer. He should have asked when the Unknowing is going to be, back when he was alone with Nikola in the shop. He supposes it shouldn’t matter anyway after they destroy the mannequin. He’ll have months more to find out when it’s happening. Maybe on some symbolic or significant date? He can’t imagine what the Stranger would find significant.

He checks his phone. Hasn’t it been almost ten minutes since Tim went to pee? He’ll give it five more.

He eats a cold slice of fried zucchini. It’s disgusting. He checks his phone.

To hell with it, Tim can’t get that much more annoyed with him. He leaves the table and goes around the corner to the toilet, and pushes open the door. Sitting in the middle of the floor, blocking the stalls, is a coffin made of light wood and wrapped with chains. Scratched into the lid are the words DO NOT OPEN, but there’s a key invitingly in the padlock.

Elias said not to open the coffin. What is it _for_? Did the Couriers, whoever they are, put Tim in there?

He stoops to lift one corner but can’t get it more than about a centimeter off the floor. It’s so heavy that there’s _got_ to be something inside. “Tim?” he says. “Tim?” He presses an ear to the coffin, which for some reason is warm. Like skin. Something inside knocks twice, three times—keeps knocking. “Can you speak? I-It’s all right, I’ll get you out.”

The knocking continues as he leans heavily on the top of the coffin. Is he imagining that it’s growing more frantic? He’s going to _have_ to open the coffin, no matter what Elias said. So, think. What could make it dangerous?

He dials and waits, chewing on his thumbnail. “This is Georgie Barker.”

“Georgie! Listen, I need—”

“I’m probably recording or something, so leave a message and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Dammit.” He stabs at his screen again. “Come on.”

It rings five times, and then… “Jon, what? You couldn’t text me?”

“I’m sorry. I’m in… Someone’s in trouble. I’ve got this coffin I’m not supposed to open, but Tim is _in_ there, I need to know if you’re ever heard of anything like this. Since artifacts are kind of your thing. Or you could ask your friend—uh, Michael? About it?”

“Mikaele. Also, slow the hell down and explain. _Tim_ isn’t going to get any _more_ in the coffin.”

“I think he’s running out of air!”

“Ex. Plain.”

“The Ringmaster came to visit Magnus. It wanted to know where Gertrude was, but Tim has his own problems with it. So he, er, attacked it, and then Elias called to let us know someone was going to be coming to get it back. Someone he called the Couriers, said they’d be bringing a coffin and not to open it. Tim and I holed up in a pub because we thought they wouldn’t attack us with so many people around, but somehow they got to him while he was in the toilet and now all that’s here is this coffin. And he’s _in_ there, I can hear him knocking.”

“Right,” says Melanie. “First off, you don’t _know_ that’s Tim. It could be anything in there, knocking. Everything these people make is a trap. Second, have you touched it?”

“What?”

“Have you touched the coffin? If you have, you shouldn’t go to sleep. You might wake up in there.”

“O-oh. I did touch it.”

Melanie sighs into the phone. “Great. That’s fantastic. Well, we should be able to get you out eventually. In the meantime, don’t go to sleep. And again, _don’t_ open the coffin. Where are you?”

“Er, the men’s toilet at the Black Dog in Vauxhall.”

“Well, get it out of the toilet at least. People need to pee in there.”

“It’s too heavy to lift!”

“Drag it out, then. I’ll be there in… twenty minutes. DON’T open the coffin.”

“I heard you the first two times!”

She’s hung up.

He gets hold of a few of the chains and slowly drags the coffin out the door, into the hallway, and then out the back, without anyone apparently noticing. If the people inside _are_ people. And he waits in a corner of the car park, pacing back and forth in front of the coffin. Tim is no longer knocking inside. But surely he hasn’t suffocated, surely he’s just saving his strength. “I’ll get you out of there,” Jon tells him again, but he doesn’t make any noise.

Jon’s eyes keep being drawn to the key in the padlock. Whatever Melanie might say, he’s sure it’s Tim in there, and if he’s already been marked to wake up inside the coffin, how much worse could it be if he opens it? It’s not like Melanie will be able to do anything to stop whatever’s in there. And that’s _if_ it isn’t just Tim.

His hand rests on the key for a moment. Then it turns. He pushes the chains off and lifts the lid. Tim is not inside. Inside is a staircase heading down into the ground. He steps up onto the top stair and then starts to descend, holding up his phone for a light.

“TIM!” he calls. No answer, and no echo. His words seem to die, small and flat, as soon as they leave his mouth. He glances behind him, hoping to see the reassuring blue of the dusky sky, but the stairs end abruptly in an earthen ceiling about a foot above his head.

He isn’t getting out of here.

Is there any point looking for Tim if he can’t get them both out? No, don’t think about that, everything should be clearer once he finds him. He keeps calling out, though he’s not sure if Tim can hear him, as the stairs continue deeper and deeper into the earth. When finally they end, he’s in a winding, branching passage that only gets lower and narrower. He has no idea how to choose a path, so he sticks to the left wall. Soon enough he has to crouch, and then crawl, and by the time he gets down on his belly to wriggle through an especially tight part of the tunnel, he realizes that it’s only going to get smaller. “TIM!” Jon shouts desperately, unable to quite inflate his lungs fully. He has to be close. He’s bigger than Jon, he shouldn’t even have been able to get this far. “Tim, you’ve got to… can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?”

Perhaps it’s his despair squeezing him tighter. Or his fear. He refuses to consider the thought that the tunnel itself is shrinking in on him. “Tim,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew how I could have… not gotten you mixed up in all of this. How did you manage to stay out of it? You were so much more patient than me.” He swallows, and shuts his eyes for a moment. He needs to keep going. If he can’t save even one person, he might as well die here. So he pulls himself further in, ignoring the constant scrape of dirt on his shoulders. It doesn’t seem quite as narrow as it did the first time. And that gives him the strength to go on. He _will_ find Tim, even if he dies trying. He calls Tim’s name again, as loud as the cramped space will allow, but what answers him is not Tim. It’s an animal growl, low and slow and expectant. He freezes and looks up at what his phone illuminates. First he catches it glinting off a pair of eyes. Then the darkness resolves into a human face, pale and smeared with dirt and focused on him. It’s another person, stuck in here as if they managed to turn around and tried to crawl back, but got stuck. Or as if they entered from the other end of the tunnel.

“Hello?” he breathes. “D-did you come from the other end?”

The other person expells air from their nose in a soft sort of whooshing grunt, but says nothing.

“How did you get here?” He pauses for an answer. None comes. “I’m, er, I’m looking for a friend. He’s quite a bit bigger than me, probably would have been swearing a lot. I don’t suppose you’ve…” It’s ridiculous to ask whether they’ve seen Tim. Where could he have gone if they have? There’s no possibility of passing here.

Suddenly the face jerks forward, and an arm claws its way past to grab for Jon. He tries to back up, but he’s stuck, so he has to settle for snatching his arm back close to him. That’s when it occurs to him that maybe this _isn’t_ a person. Maybe it lives in the tunnel, waiting. Maybe, sufficiently motivated, it could come through.

“Er, s-sorry to bother you, I don’t think he’s here. Maybe I missed a turning.” Again he tries to back away, but his shoulders won’t fit. “I really, really need to find him,” he whispers. The trapped thing follows him with its wide, intelligent eyes. “Come on, Jon. It’s just settled a little around you. You just need to dig out space to move. Then you can get out of here.”

“…Get… out…” echoes the thing.

“You can _talk_.”

“Gettttt. Mee. Outtt.”

“A-ah, of course, but I would like you to promise not to kill me if I do. Promise?”

“Prrrrromissse.”

“Right.” Jon takes as deep a breath as the walls will allow. “No, I’m being stupid. I don’t need to play by the coffin’s rules. I can do magic, for goodness’ sake.” He can’t reach the pen or the notebook in his pockets, but he can open the drawing app that came with his phone and begin to trace a loose, flowing shape that’s much larger than the screen. As he concentrates on conveying the essence of _space_ , his breathing becomes easier. The tunnel doesn’t _look_ bigger, but he has space to move. He crawls backward, and the trapped thing—person—follows. Never quite closing the distance between them, but never out of sight around the bends of the passage either. It’s unnerving, especially with its eyes unwaveringly fixed on him. But the passage begins to grow wider again. Wider, and wider, until he can crawl on hands and knees, and then until he can turn around, and then until he can stand. The trapped thing staggers as it tries to stand, and instinctively, stupidly, he reaches out a hand to steady it. It doesn’t attack, though. Just grabs on and pulls itself up and doesn’t let go. He lets it lean on him until they reach the foot of the stairs, where he stops and begins, desperately, to expand the drawing on his phone. It’s a good thing he has infinite canvas enabled. With every stroke the ceiling withdraws a little, higher and higher, until all that’s left is the wooden lid of the coffin. Almost unable to believe it was that easy, he pushes it up and it topples off. Melanie’s voice swears suddenly.

“Jon? Is that you? You couldn’t have waited?” she hisses. “It was literally twenty minu—what the hell? That’s not Tim, is it?”

“No,” he says, gasping in the cool evening air. “No, it’s not. I have no idea who, or what, this is. But take care of them. I need to go back in. And look for Tim.”

“Are you completely out of your mind?”

Jon’s face contorts into a grin, without any real input from him. “Maybe!” he says. “But I’m not leaving until I find him. Don’t worry. I’ll be with you again soon.”

“Jon—!”

Her voice is swallowed as the earthen ceiling closes again over his head. Now, though, he’s more confident. He can counter it. He just has to pick the right passage and get through. And though he has no real hope of knowing which one Tim’s in, he has to try. So at the first branching of the passages he draws an eye in the middle of the Vast framework on the screen of his phone. After a moment of thought he writes TIMOTHY STOKER next to it, and hopefully holds it out toward the leftmost passage. It blinks, and he nearly drops his phone. But when it opens again it’s looking to the right.

 He’s able to walk much further upright than last time, like the tunnel is being forced to let him deeper in. He crawls for a long time on hands and knees before once again it narrows enough that he has to wriggle on his belly. He has to be getting close, with the number of turnings he’s made and noted down. “Tim? Tim, can you hear me?”

No reply. No sound at all, when he’s still, except the loud noise of his own breathing and heartbeat. “I’m going to find you,” he mutters to himself. “Just hold on.” He pulls himself forward with steadily more difficulty, turning sideways to get around the bends. And then he reaches a dead end. “No,” he breathes. His free hand is scratching at the dirt almost before he even registers it. “No, no, no, no, no. I will not have this.” And then his fingers brush against something fibrous, and he recoils. There’s… hair, buried in the dirt. Short, coarse black hair. Oh. Heart pounding, he brushes more dirt away until Tim’s head appears, and part of one arm. He seems to be unconscious. Jon scribbles furiously on his phone, expanding the drawing more and more until he can’t feel the walls on his back at all. He braces himself and heaves Tim forward by the arm, and Tim slides back toward him. And slowly, painfully, he drags Tim out of the grasp of the Buried. He doesn’t check for a pulse. He doesn’t want to know if Tim is dead. Simply put, Tim _can’t_ be dead. Because—because—

Because then he couldn’t be afraid. That’s it. It needs him alive.

Jon doesn’t know how long it takes to get Tim back to the stairs. He’s stopped keeping track of time at all, grimly concentrated on the one and only thing that matters: getting Tim out. But when he sits down on the bottom step with Tim propped up beside him, he suddenly feels all the pain and weariness he’s been ignoring. He can barely move his shaking finger to draw. But he must. He’s so close.

He drags Tim to the ceiling at the top of the stairs. Crouches to draw one more sweeping line. Goes up to the new top of the stairs. And again and again and again and again until his hand meets wood and he weakly pushes the lid away.

He pulls Tim up to the lip of the coffin by a fistful of his shirt, but he can’t just drop him onto the asphalt. “M-Melanie,” he gasps. “Help?”

But Melanie isn’t there. He looks around for her, trying to slow his heaving breath, but she’s nowhere to be seen. And he _can_ see, though the light is nearly blinding after so long in the dark. It looks like dawn has already come to the tops of the buildings around him. But is this where he went _into_ the coffin? Is there more than one?

He settles for sitting on the rim and cradling Tim’s head in his lap, then just sliding off onto the ground. It’s not very gentle at all in the end, but it’s better than dying encased in dirt. Jon lays Tim’s head on a little patch of weeds sprouting out of the asphalt and stands on shaking legs to look back into the waiting hole of the coffin. He takes a minute or two to get the lid back on, but can’t hope to redo the chains and the lock right now.

His phone buzzes on the ground. He has… seven new text messages.

_00:14 | Hey Jon, you complete idiot, you should get these if you ever DO come back out of there. And your phone’s still working._

_00:33 | I’ve loaded the coffin into my van and I’m taking you somewhere a little less public. Dirt girl is coming with._

_00:58 | I’m leaving you outside, don’t be too alarmed if you come out and I’m not here. I’ll try to be back after dirt girl is settled._

_01:31 | Sorry this is taking so long, if you’re waiting for me. I don’t think she’s familiar with the concept of showers._

_03:18 | I can’t stay awake much longer. Going back into my flat. Set an alarm for 730, though. See you then._

_03:18 | You piece of shit._

_03:21 | If you get out before I wake up, I put a spare key under the corner of the coffin. Mine is 6b._

He smiles weakly at his screen. It was… kind of her to do this. She didn’t just leave him, she made sure he would know what was going on. She didn’t anticipate that he wouldn’t be able to get Tim into the building, and frankly he doesn’t want to leave the coffin in the open where anyone could come across it. And he expects someone will at—he checks his phone again—6:43 AM.

Well, that’s something, at least. It won’t be too much longer.

He leans against the side of the coffin and stares tiredly at Tim, gripping the spare key in one hand. Now that it’s properly light he can see that Tim’s chest is rising and falling. Thank G-d.

He must have fallen into a doze, because he wakes with a start when Melanie’s piercing voice cries, “I can’t believe you actually made it out alive, you stupid man! Why didn’t you come up?”

“ ‘s good to see you too,” he mumbles. “I didn’t want to… leave the coffin… ‘m too tired to lock it up again.”

“Careful, someone could mistake you for civically responsible. Well, get out of the way, I’ll do it. How’s Tim?”

“Alive. Don’t know much more than that.”

“Hmm. Seems like it really took it out of you.” She’s accompanied by the sound of clinking chains, and finally the snap of a padlock. “We’ll check him out later. Come on, get up. You’re going to have to help me carry him, he’s bloody enormous.”

He lets her pull him to his feet, and then together, awkwardly, they maneuver Tim through the car park and into an elevator. “Don’t go back to sleep,” Melanie tells him. Her voice is uncharacteristically gentle. “We’re almost there. Then you’re going to have to take a shower, of course. G-d, I’m glad I don’t have carpet.”

The shower is a blur, most of which he spends sitting on the floor. Clean clothes have appeared for him, and he puts them on without wondering how. He feels almost human, if very tired, when he stumbles out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

“D’you want eggs?” Melanie asks him from the kitchen. He looks around for Tim, who he finds in the corner with his head pillowed on an already very dirty towel, before nodding and slumping down at the table. “Don’t fall asleep before you eat anything. Stay awake for literally five more minutes.”

He does manage that, at least, and gets some eggs in him. Then he passes out on Melanie’s table and sleeps a blessedly dreamless sleep.

 

He wakes stiff and aching to a lot of shouting he can’t quite make out. It’s Melanie’s voice, though, and it gradually resolves into… mostly cursing. He sits up and blinks at the scene in the kitchen: Melanie holding a saucepan in front of her like a shield, cornered by someone else with a knife. “I rescued you and made you take a fucking shower, you’re not allowed to kill me! I’ll kill you first if you try.”

“What…?” says Jon. This proves to be a mistake; the one with the knife turns and thrusts it at him like a threat, and he realizes it’s the thing from the tunnel. The one Melanie referred to as Dirt Girl.

“Kill you,” she echoes, teeth bared in a snarl. “Where ‘m I? Where’s the dirt?”

“ _He_ pulled you out of the dirt, so it would be pretty ungrateful to kill him. Also, you do that and I will murder you with my bare hands if I have to.” Dirt Girl lowers the knife and straightens slowly. “You’re in my flat. I am oh-so-graciously putting you up even though you’re acting like a feral fucking animal. If you tell me your name I might be able to work out how long you were in that hole.”

“Name,” says the woman. “No use for a name in there.”

“Maybe you had some ID on you? I haven’t burnt your old clothes yet. Just quarantined them on the tarp. Jon, would you go look through them?”

He staggers in the direction she’s pointing, falls, and crawls over so he can clumsily go through the pile of dirt-encrusted clothes lying next to Tim until he finds a wallet. Tim is still breathing. His eyes are moving rapidly under their lids, as if he’s dreaming. Jon crawls back to give the wallet to Melanie, as the other woman isn’t very likely to be able to read.

“Alice Tonner. Police detective. Well, I’ve never heard of you. If you’ll just sit down like a reasonable person I can look you up and figure out where you’re supposed to be, you can get out of my hair, and nobody has to get knifed. For G-d’s sake, put the knife down.”

Alice doesn’t put the knife down, but she does fold her hands neatly around it to avoid cutting anything by accident. Melanie, grumbling, bangs down the saucepan she was holding and stomps over to the table to throw open her laptop.

“Oh, look. You’ve got a missing persons report from 2012. You’re from Wembley… thirty-one years old, thirty-five now, I guess. Worked for the City of London Police. Honestly I’d rather not have to give a statement, so maybe I could drop you off and you could just sort of… go and announce yourself?”

Alice stares at Melanie. She is still holding the knife, but not necessarily in a threatening way.

“What? Then what do you want me to do?”

“Drop… me off,” says Alice finally. “Fine. I won’t tell about you.”

“Great. Now that’s settled, we can just go. Jon, stay here and look after Tim. If he wakes up make him take a shower.”

“Shouldn’t I—?”

“You should _rest_. Do I need to remind you that you spent ten hours dragging other people out of a hole in the ground? You can’t even walk. Take a _break_. Raid my pantry if you want.”

“Find Basira,” mutters Alice as she wanders over toward the door, knife still in hand. “Where’s Basira?”

“Wait,” Jon calls. “I mean, you were police—you don’t mean Basira Hussain?” Alice’s head whips around, her gaze sharpens, and she stalks toward him. He shrinks back into his chair. “I, uh, I just mean, I could call her? If my phone hasn’t died?” He glances pleadingly toward Melanie, who narrows her eyes and inserts herself between him and Alice.

“Jon’s phone is dead right now. Let me do the calling. I think I’ve got her business card somewhere. Private detective, right? Wears a hijab, believes in ghosts?”

“You’ve _met_ her?”

“Yeah, I interviewed her a couple years ago. She said she was looking for two Cockney guys, thought they had something to do with her partner’s disappearance. That would’ve been you, right?”

“Call her. Now.”

“Jesus, hold your horses. I’ve got to find her card. Try not to stab anyone while you’re waiting, would you?”

Jon and Alice watch warily as Melanie ransacks the whole room and finally comes up with a shoulder bag containing dozens of business cards. She drops the pile on the table for Jon to help sort through, but Alice just stands over them watching. Maybe she really _can’t_ read. “Here,” he says, holding it up. “That’s her number.”

Alice seems not to remember how to work a phone, either, so Melanie dials and then gives it up so she can press it into her face. “ _Hello?_ ” says Basira’s faint voice. “ _Who is this?_ ”

“Basira,” says Alice. “I got out. I’m free.”

“ _Daisy? Daisy, is that you? Where are you?_ ”

“Daisy. That’s my name. I don’t know. In someone’s house. Where are we?” she demands, turning to Melanie. She repeats the address Melanie tells her into the phone. It is not Melanie’s address.

“ _Right. I’ll come and find you. Stay there. Stay safe._ ”

“Basira,” Daisy sighs.

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Just you. Basira.”

“ _I’ll see you soon,_ ” says Basira’s smiling voice. And she hangs up.

“Right, let’s get to the rendezvous point,” says Melanie. “And for Christ’s sake, leave the knife here, it’s mine. I need it for chopping onions. Jon, like I said, stay here with Tim. I’ll be back in like, half an hour.”

Daisy _very_ reluctantly leaves the knife on a chair and follows Melanie out. The door closes, and Jon stares at the knife, wanting to get up and put it somewhere no-one will accidentally sit on it. But he doesn’t have the energy. He switches his gaze to Tim; now that the flat is quiet it’s obvious that Tim is having bad dreams; every so often he’ll curl up into a tiny ball and whimper quietly under the crackling of the tarp. He’s getting dirt everywhere, and aside from that it would probably be a mercy to wake him.

With some effort Jon goes to him, and gets up onto his knees. “Tim,” he says, and puts a hand on Tim’s shoulder. When that gets no response he shakes gently.

Tim uncurls all at once, smacking Jon in the chest with his arm. “Whzt,” he says, looking around in agitated confusion.

“You’re safe now,” Jon tells him. “Aboveground and all.”

“I was dead,” Tim slurs. “I know I was dead. I died in there, Jon.”

“You didn’t. I got you out. But… you’ve been dreaming about the coffin, haven’t you?”

Tim falls onto his back with a crunch and lies there, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah. Being trapped underground. Cave-ins. You’ll never get me in a cave again as long as I live. How the _hell_ did you get me out?”

“I did some Vast magic and then… I dragged you. It must have taken something like four hours?”

“Ugh. Thanks. Guess I owe you.”

“But what happened? You went to the toilet and fifteen minutes later…”

“These two guys came in while I was pissing, said they were here to take my delivery. I dunno, they did something to me so I’d _want_ to go in that damned coffin. And they must have convinced me to leave the mannequin behind. Fuck! We were so close. We could have fucking killed him.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“We? Since when do you care about avenging Danny?”

“Since Nikola’s the star performer in a ritual to end the world.”

“Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, I actually wrote this chapter BEFORE Entombed came out and was pretty tickled at how closely it matched. The only thing I wasn't expecting was that the coffin would have multiple passages inside it instead of just one, totally inevitable, one.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a favor to me, the author, when you get to Michelle Peterson please read her in the voice of Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett. Thanks. As compensation here's another chapter where Jon does something incomprehensibly ill-advised!

 

Melanie seems pleased enough to see Tim alive, clad in only a towel, and demolishing all her bacon when she returns. “Well,” she says, leaning over the back of Jon’s chair. “Georgie’s going to need to hear about this.”

“Who’s Georgie?” Tim asks through a mouthful of bacon.

“My partner in crime. Or, justice, whatever. Interestingly, she also died in a coffin, sort of.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We know this guy who sells dodgy antiques and evil artifacts and that sort of thing, and Georgie got stuck in one. It wasn’t quite as… elaborate as your coffin, but it was a box that got smaller whenever you weren’t afraid of it. Georgie doesn’t _feel_ fear, so you can imagine it got quite small.”

“Jesus,” says Tim, looking away. “That’s fucked up. I guess we’re died-in-a-coffin pals, then. Yay.”

“Yeah. So. She should be here in a bit.”

There’s an interlude during which the only sound is Tim energetically eating bacon and eggs. Jon glances up at Melanie, who for some bizarre reason is still leaning over him. It makes him a bit uneasy. “Er, thank you,” he says quietly. “For, for putting us up, and moving the coffin, and, er, your text messages.”

“Hey, what are co-conspirators for? I’d be mildly put out if I couldn’t torment you any more.” Melanie pats him on the shoulder, and he winces because even compared to every other part of his body his shoulders hurt a lot. And he’s not used to being touched.

There’s a distant buzzing, and everyone looks around for the source. It’s in the pile of dirt-encrusted clothes on the tarp. Melanie, as the least exhausted among them, goes to root through it and comes up with a phone. Raises her eyebrows at Tim.

“Give it here, then.” He looks through it and then says, “Oh, your phone’s dead, isn’t it, Jon? Martin’s wondering where you are. No idea why he’d ask me.” He starts typing something, and Jon tries to crane over to look at it.

“You’re not telling him the _truth_ , are you?”

“No,” says Tim, rather derisively. “I’m asking him why he’d think I would know where you are. Oh, he thinks I might be responsible for your debilitating hangover. Well, we _did_ go to the pub last night. I’ll tell him I won’t be able to come in either.”

“This Martin, is he really stupid enough to buy that? I mean, he’s Jon’s boss, right? He has _met_ Jon.”

Tim looks up to wink at Melanie. “I can be a very bad influence.” Melanie snorts.

“Yeah, that’s pretty clear after last night. I can’t believe you actually managed to get Jon in _more_ trouble than he’d have managed on his own.”

“Excuse me,” says Jon. He is completely ignored.

“What can I say? I have a talent for vengeance, I guess.”

“Right. Well, Georgie’s downstairs, I have to go let her in. Don’t set the place on fire before I get back.”

Jon spends a few minutes watching Tim continue onto his third breakfast, and wishing he could lie down on the sofa without removing himself from the center of discussion. Or maybe he could convince everyone to move to the sitting room? No, he’d have to sit up anyway to preserve his dignity.

The door opens and Georgie comes sailing in, looking far more like an avenging angel than she really has any need to. She leans down over Jon to glare fiercely over his entire body, like she’s checking for wounds. “You’re all right, then?”

“Yes…? I-I suppose so.”

“Good. Are these Melanie’s clothes? I never realized you’re really exactly the same shape.”

Jon looks down. He’s wearing a band tee shirt that’s slightly too long for him, and black jeans. “Of course they’re Melanie’s clothes. I’ve never ‘seen a band’ in my life. Except the ones you dragged me to.”

She leans down and hugs him, which he accepts with some degree of embarrassment. “Good to have you back.” When she moves to sit down at her own chair Tim is looking at Jon with raised eyebrows. Jon ignores him.

“So, Melanie _sort_ of filled me in,” Georgie says. “But what I don’t get is why any of this happened at all. Is this some kind of revenge for us going to the wax museum? They wanted to finish Jon off or something?”

“It was looking for Gertrude. You know I told you she faked her death?”

“WHAT?” says Tim loudly.

“I was cursed not to tell anyone. _If_ I may continue. She faked her death, for reasons I still don’t quite understand. But Nikola wasn’t content with the fake corpse Gertrude had made. I-I don’t know what they wanted it for. But it thought since Gertrude was at Magnus the night before she ‘died’ I might know something about it.”

“I reckon they need Gertrude for the ritual somehow,” says Melanie.

“Probably just her skin,” Tim mutters. “The fucking circus loves taking people’s skin.”

There’s a rather glum silence. Georgie stands up to look in the refrigerator and then closes it without taking anything out and sits back down.

“Well,” says Jon, and they all turn to look at him. “Gerard might have some idea? I mean—at least, he’s much better at ritual magic.”

Georgie sighs explosively. “Thank G-d you said that. I thought we were just going to sit here forever.”

“Er, right, so, I suppose I could just… go and ask him now?”

“Do you really think you’re ditching us to go see the only marginally friendly person who knows what the fuck is going on?” asks Melanie. “Without being able to walk properly. Because if so you’re even stupider than I gave you credit for.”

“I don’t know if he’d take kindly to having  three people he’s never met come to his house to question him?”

“Tough. Let’s go.”

 

They go.  By the time they make it to Pinhole, Jon is in pain, the door is unlocked, and it has another note: _Consider your appointment made. Lock it behind you, blah blah blah._ “I like this guy,” says Melanie to herself.

“Eh,” says Tim. “Wait ‘til you meet him.”

Jon doesn’t bother arguing. They’ll form their own opinions of Gerard. He leads the way up the stairs (very slowly and painfully, and without the heart to refuse Georgie’s help) to find five cups of tea already steaming on the desk. Each of them, he notes, is a different variety. Did Gerard…scry their favorite kinds of tea?

When he glances up, Gerard has a sort of embarrassed half-smile, so he’ll take that as a yes. Gerard is… trying to impress Jon’s friends. That’s rather sweet.

Of course, he impresses by being unnervingly omniscient. “I’ve thought a bit about your question,” he says without waiting for anyone to ask it. “It will take time to develop countermeasures, obviously. But is there a good reason you’re not leaving this to Gertrude?”

Melanie gives him a hard stare for a moment, and then drops into a chair and starts examining the teacups with maximum nonchalance. “I trust her about as far as I could throw her. Who’s she? Some old woman who keeps trying to kill Jon and never quite manages it? He seems really quite easy to kill.” She picks out the cup that was set closest to her and sips. Jon sits beside her with a quiet groan of relief, because his legs have been shaking too much to stand for long, even leaning on Georgie.

“I’m sure Jon’s told you that she’s already stopped five rituals. She didn’t fail to kill Jon out of incompetence, she just thinks he could be useful. For what… Maybe she’s using you all to draw attention away from herself. You’ve certainly made a lot of waves.”

“You’re saying that us trying to stop the Unknowing is somehow part of _her_ plan to stop the Unknowing?” asks Georgie.

“Yeah. She should’ve declared for the Web a long time ago. Wheels within wheels.”

Tim sighs the deep, weary sigh of a dog lying on the floor and sits down so he can languish as if on a fainting couch. “Here’s the thing, though,” he says in a hard, distant voice, looking up at the ceiling. “I want to personally burn the Unknowing to the ground. I want to personally watch that fucking ringmaster mannequin melt into a puddle of disgusting plastic. I don’t give a shit if Gertrude can do it better. I. Need. To do it.”

Gerard glances at Jon, raising his eyebrows fractionally. Jon feels as if he’s being given some kind of responsibility for managing Tim, but he hasn’t the first idea how. “Well… we can do that,” he says.

Tim laughs bitterly. “Thanks for your permission.”

“The only question is how. Could we… get good enough at seeing to counter it with Beholding?”

“Not in about a month we couldn’t. We have no idea when it’s going to happen, and I’m going to assume your and Tim’s stunt with the coffin didn’t delay it at all.” Gerard ignores Tim’s rude hand gesture to address Jon. “The surest bet would be to disrupt the physical structure the ritual’s based in. Only catch is, if we do it too soon they can just find somewhere else to do it.”

“You’re telling me we need to blow it up at the most dramatically appropriate time,” says Tim. “I can get on fucking board with that. Melanie, you seem like a woman who could get her hands on some explosives.”

Melanie laughs. “Oh, I’m flattered. I bet Mikaele could do me something.”

“This is lovely,” says Gerard, “very touching show of teamwork, but it’s a little redundant because I’m fairly sure Gertrude will be doing the same thing.”

“Oh. Why don’t we steal them, then?”

Gerard leans his face into his hand and looks at Tim with a perfectly expressionless face that Tim, for some reason, seems to find extremely disturbing.

 

The next few weeks are too peaceful. Observation of the wax museum reveals nothing more interesting than repeated visits of a delivery van marked BREEKON & HOPE; Martin is mildly ruffled by Melanie’s appearance at the shop and Jon’s refusal  to tell him why she brought two ragged sets of clothing; Elias, at the September auction, is as unhelpful as ever. The worst thing that happens is that Mike Crew and Michael Shelley find themselves in the shop at the same time and have to be magicked to stop them going at each other like angry cats. Can’t have too many Michaels in the same place, Jon thinks idly, as over the top of his book he watches Martin picking cobwebs off a delusion in sulking human form. It _would_ be inevitable that Jon is recruited to help free Mike.

“You know I love Martin,” Mike says under his breath, “but sometimes I wonder about his taste in people. Elias? Sure, someone’s got to tolerate him enough to work for him. Jane? I’m sure she’s lovely when you get past the oozing holes. And that woman with the… oh, I don’t remember. But that lightning-fingered thing—I don’t know why he lets it in here.”

“I, er, I think they used to…” Jon considers the facts for a moment. He might be a bit socially dense, but the only word he can really come up with for them is _enamored_. “I think they used to date, actually, before Michael became that thing. So it’s sort of… loyalty, I suppose.”

“Martin would,” Mike sighs, not unfondly. “But I don’t want to see that thing. I come here for a bit of peace and quiet, you know? You wouldn’t believe how hard that is to find that with the Fairchilds running around. They’re always inviting me on bloody cruises. You’d think they could take a hint, right?” Jon doesn’t interrupt, as much as he’d like to know who the Fairchilds are. He can ask Martin later, when he’s in less danger of irritating a walking column of vertigo. “And that’s not to speak of all the screaming. Obviously a guy’s got to eat, and I really do find the sound of the wind quite—well! But you can only be on the bleeding edge of death so long before you want to stay in for a while with a cup of tea. You’re very understanding at Magnus. Martin always orders my favorites.”

The favorites in question are trashy demon romance novels, largely about conflicted young professionals in unexpected supernatural circumstances who end up having to save the world for no very good reason. Jon read one out of a sense of duty and couldn’t really understand it. It’s not exactly high literature, is it? But Jon has gotten some _tips_ about managing customers (after a few complaints in the form of shouting matches), so he says, in his most placating voice, “We do strive to be a welcoming place. And we appreciate your patronage.”

“Yeah? Practice that in front of the mirror a couple more times and you might sound believable. I do feel a bit of a berk for causing trouble now. Could you ask Martin to keep that thing away from the shop on my days?”

“I’ll ask. I don’t know if he—it—ever listens.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “It’s _Martin_.”

So, yes, it’s too peaceful. Since being hired at Magnus, Jon has never been able to _enjoy_ peace. It always feels like waiting. Jon waiting for something bad to happen, and something bad waiting for him to wander too close. Now it’s the Unknowing patiently building its strength, and him waiting for the day when it’s finally time to blow it up.

He’s not involved in stealing the explosives at all. Tim, Georgie, and Melanie seem happy to wave Gerard around like a dowsing rod looking for wherever Gertrude has hidden them. It’s almost a shock when they actually find a rented storage unit on the edge of the city with no particular care taken to disguise it. Gerard thinks, and Jon agrees, that Gertrude is letting them have this. She could easily have hidden her explosives with magic, but she didn’t. Thanks to Tim’s insistence on doing her work for her, Gertrude doesn’t have to lift a finger or put herself in any danger. When Jon can muster the energy he’s angry at her, but more of the time he’s trying to track down Beholding’s books to see if he can’t find a clue to how he can get better at seeing.

“If you wish to be able to see through the Stranger’s veil,” Elias told him last Monday, “you will need to come closer to Beholding. You may have progressed remarkably quickly as a result of your… intimate encounter with it, but you still have far to go.”

“And how is it I can do that, exactly?” Jon asked. “Even full avatars can’t ‘see through the veil.’”

“Not from a distance, certainly. But not all avatars are equal, Jon. If you want our patron’s gifts, you must be prepared to give something in return. You have to feed it.”

“I’m not going to terrify people to get magic powers.”

“Even to save the world?”

“What about Beholding’s ritual, then?” he snapped. “You want me to learn to save the world from that?”

Elias was silent, staring very intently at Jon with a strange look in his eyes. “Don’t be so quick to condemn us, Jon,” he said. “You will begin to understand.”

But he doesn’t. Elias may be strange, but he’s _human_. He seems perfectly clear-headed except when it comes to his own ritual. Jon tried to raise the subject delicately with Gerard, who snorted and told him that just because he’d been born terrifying didn’t mean he’d been born stupid. Not all avatars find it as important as Elias does, then. But why should anyone want to end the world?

Jon is only able to find one book in the end, and he can’t afford to buy it. Michelle Peterson is happy enough to let him sit in her dusty shop and read it until closing, though. It’s a Leitner from years ago that she never managed to sell. He still isn’t sure what avatars _use_ the books for—their own private rituals? War against the other Powers?—but whatever it is the avatars of Beholding in London seem to have no interest in it. So he’s here instead slowly translating a book from the Ukrainian through a photographic translation app, feeling like it’s reading him much faster than he can read it. He lets it do that, because he can’t think of any way it would be dangerous. It’s a rather dry treatise on the mechanisms of vision, despite what the illustrations seem to suggest. He skips to the text next to a diagram showing an eye backed by clockwork so intricate it’s hard to look at and seems to be spinning when he looks out of the corner of his eye. And slowly he translates:

_In plate on opposing page, see mechanism under vision type 3. Labyrinth mind of universal clockwork guides understanding. Predict truth with perfect accuracy by knowing beforehand principles of operation. Accuracy results from studying mechanics: begin with small creatures (insects, mice, birds) and continue to study of humans. Physical dissection is not sufficient and should be accompanied by [untranslateable] dissection._

Type 3 would take too long to learn even if he _were_ prepared for… untranslateable dissection. He shudders and starts paging back to see if he can find ‘vision type 2.’ But the book seems to have other ideas; the pages refuse to stay still, blowing the opposite direction as if in a strong wind, so he gives up and lets it happen. It flips to the end of the first part, showing an illustration of a cross-section of a human head, upsettingly swollen with thin sheets covered in writing. The text explains,

_Vision type 6 is effected by knowing information that should not be known: it is not allowed, or it is not possible to know. Teach the mind to disregard limitations of knowledge and learn the qualia of impossible information. Once this qualia is familiar, the mind will reach for it easily._

Yes, yes, that’s exactly what he needs. The book knew—it _did_ read him, after all. But what information is ‘impossible’? And how can he know it, if so?

The pages flip forward to near the end of the book, to a subheading that he translates as _Examples of Impossible Knowledge_. His breath begins to come faster, and he leans in.

_First impossible knowledge: secret thoughts of boy who hated you and saved your life age eight years old._

He jerks back from the words on the screen of his phone. Stares at it for a moment. It’s nothing that can hurt him now. He has to steady his hands on his knees to take the next picture, because they’re shaking with a combination of emotions he can neither name nor pick apart at all. What follows is a complete litany of the boy’s thoughts—Thomas, of course his name was Thomas, how could Jon forget?—for the entire day of his death, ending several hours after he was snatched through his own front door by eight spindly black legs. None of it is something Jon wants to know. He feels… sick. Bloated. Creepy. But he makes himself read until the end, until he comes to _Second impossible knowledge: one day for grandmother_.

He wants to know this even less. He reads. He begins to feel dizzy, and a migraine works its way into his skull, pushing into his right eye until he can barely see anything and making green and purple spots dance in front of his left. This is probably too much impossible knowledge at once, but he might not be allowed to spend all day with this book a second time. Michelle is already being extraordinarily kind.

So he reads _Third impossible knowledge: history of Elias Bouchard_ , although he has to hold his phone inches from his face to make out any of the words and his head is pounding. Elias used to be just a person, with bad taste in music and worse taste in friends. He didn’t choose to become what he is; he just didn’t bother to back out, didn’t realize what was happening until it was far too late. The passage ends: _He watches you reading this, and he is satisfied_. Those words are the last thing Jon sees before his left eye gives up altogether and he is completely blind.

He feels for his eyes, afraid for no good reason that they might have disappeared entirely. No, he can still feel them roundly filling out their sockets. He can still feel himself blink. But he cannot see. “Michelle,” he calls hoarsely. His own voice is so loud it hurts his head. “Michelle?”

He closes the book with trembling hands as footsteps come closer through the maze of antique furniture and bookshelves. “What’s wrong?” Michelle’s voice asks. It hurts too.

“I-I… I read too much. I can’t see.”

She makes a little _tsk_ sound and a sigh. “It’s psychosomatic. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes, your brain just won’t process any more visual information today. You’ve overdone it, love. I did warn you.”

“I know,” he says faintly. “I just… don’t know what to do. How am I going to get home?”

“Do you know anyone with a car? I can help you call them.”

“Melanie,” he says. He tries to give her his phone, fumbles it, and she has to pick it up off the floor. Michelle makes the call, and he presses it to his ear.

“What have you done this time?” asks Melanie.

“I might not have done anything,” says Jon, but he knows his shaky voice gives him away. “I’m, er, te-temporarily blind, so… I can’t really take the underground home, and if you have the time to pick me up it would be very much appreciated.”

She sighs. “I can’t leave you alone for two days. Yes, I’ll pick you up, you miserable man. If I’d realized how high-maintenance you were going to be, I’d have never invited you to save the world with me. I’d have just told you to forward Gerry my number and be done with it. He’s also cooler than you. D’you know what he told me? He told me you don’t even listen to music at all. He told me you used to record restaurants for the background noise instead. Was he having me on or what?”

“He never is,” Jon says. “Look, c-can we skip the name-calling until you actually get here? I’m at Tapestry Antiques in Woolwich.”

“You’re welcome for dinner at mine any time,” Melanie snaps. “You don’t have to go blind to get an invitation.” And she hangs up before he can even consider a retort.

Jon sits in perfect blackness looking down at his phone until Michelle gently takes the book out of his lap. “Got a ride, love?”

“Yes. Yes, I’ve got a ride. Er, thank you for letting me stay and read this. A lot of people wouldn’t let me treat it as a library when I can’t pay—”

“It’s really no trouble at all,” she interrupts. “Just doing a favor for a friend. All the same, I think I’ll have to cut you off for now.”

“That’s… that’s probably wise. Er, I’ll just go and wait out front,” says Jon.  He stands, but he’s so dizzy that he immediately crashes to the floor, making antique crockery rattle on its shelves.

“Good grief,” says Michelle. “Let me help you get out there. You’re going to concuss yourself.”

So he suffers the indignity of leaning on Michelle Peterson’s arm as she maneuvers him through the shop and out the door to lean him against the wall. “You’ll be all right until your friend gets here? I can wait with you.”

“No, you don’t need to.”

“All right. Give a yell if you need anything. Good luck.”

He clutches at his bag and sinks slowly to the ground. It will probably be safer in the long run, and the late afternoon heat isn’t helping his pounding headache at all. He pushes his cold fingers through his hair to try and cool his head off and attempts to block out the smell of a café somewhere nearby, because strong smells seem to make his headache worse too. It’s far too long before he hears an engine come near and shift into idle, and Melanie’s voice saying, “I’m here. Just come toward my voice.”

He considers trying to make it across the pavement on his own, but in the end that will be a greater indignity than asking for help. Melanie sighs a long-suffering sigh that by this point he doesn’t think she really means, and helps him up and into her van.

“So?” she says.

“I’ve been trying to learn to see through the Stranger’s tricks.”

“You won’t be seeing much if you’re blind. Unless this is some kind of… blind seer shit? Are you Tireisias now?”

“You studied classics?” he asks in surprise.

“Oh, and you studied being classist? Makes sense they’d offer that at fucking Oxford. You must have needed a leg up to compete with the trust fund kids.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“What did you do.”

“I found a book about… ways of seeing. The quickest and most, er, ethical one was training my mind to the feeling of impossible knowledge.”

“Of course it was. You read a book containing things man was not meant to know, and you went blind. That’s so fucking Lovecraftian.”

“ _Temporarily_ blind.”

“My point stands. Unlike you. You know how useless you’re going to be if you’ve destroyed your inner ear?”

“I’m already completely useless, according to you,” Jon snaps. “I can’t really get much worse by blinding myself and ruining my sense of balance. You might be a bit nicer, considering—”

“I’m NOT NICE. Never have been, never plan to be, certainly not to soothe your bruised ego.”

“ _My_ ego—!”

“Can you not shut up for five minutes together when I’m going out of my way to bail you out of your own idiotic decisions? Maybe at least learn to _act_ grateful if you’re not capable of feeling that emotion. G-d, Jon! You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met and you’re honestly pretty high on the list of worst possible friend! You’re ticking all the boxes—”

“Then let me out and I’ll walk home. What do you care?”

There’s a muffled scream of frustrated pique from his right, and the van jerks to a stop. For a moment he thinks she’s about to do exactly what he suggested, but the seconds pass and all he can hear is her trying to calm her breathing. “What kind of a person would do that, even to a complete stranger?” she says through gritted teeth. “You’re not a stranger. You’re part of my crew. I’ve already saved your stupid life twice, I’ve sort of made a blood oath with you, I lent you my fucking clothes! I don’t know why you’re so set on trying to make me stop caring about you!”

Jon doesn’t know what to say to that, as Melanie aggressively shifts into gear and starts moving again. After almost a minute she says, “Ignore that. Obviously I don’t care about you.”

He starts laughing quietly, just little shudders of breath out of him as he cradles his head in his cold hands. “Obviously,” he says. “Thank you, Melanie.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

 

He still has a headache in his dreams, bombarded by hyperreal images of the impossible knowledge that he went blind for. Plus some extra, a series of confused impressions of a dark place with a void-black creature prowling through it, somehow in vivid colors despite the darkness. The images bloom and fade in time with his wet, thudding pulse, and he wakes still confused and in pain. He still can’t see anything. It takes him too long to remember why he can’t see, let alone recognize the smell of Melanie’s flat. There’s no sound of vehicles outside, nor any birds, so it must be the middle of the night. He stares sightlessly up at the ceiling until the darkness starts to lighten into blurry predawn grey, and then he begins to weep with relief.


	11. Chapter 11

Of course, he doesn’t _stop_ seeking impossible knowledge. The Unknowing is far too near for that. If Tim insists on blowing it up and Gertrude insists on letting him, Jon is going to have to help. So instead of reading at work he researches anything and everything impossible to know in the hopes that he’ll get close enough with speculation to find something he shouldn’t. It makes Martin incredibly grumpy, so much so that he stops talking to Jon altogether. For his part Jon is glad that he’s the only one who can compel answers out of people. He’s been avoiding Gerry too, because Gerry will also tell him to stop, because he _is_ being incredibly foolish if he doesn’t want to become an avatar. The difference is Jon actually cares what Gerry thinks.

Today he’s reading theories about the Bermuda Triangle, in case someone turns out to have been right and he can confirm it. In five days he hasn’t yet gotten more than little flickers, at least in the waking world, but his dreams have been growing ever more vivid and disturbing. He never remembers them on waking, but he feels close…

Well, it’s not a magnetic anomaly. And it’s certainly not… low-density water? How do people come up with this rubbish? If there is anything to the disappearances, and it’s not just superstitious nonsense, it seems likely that it’s down to one of the Powers. Most likely the Spiral, which would explain all the navigation errors, reports that the pilots were getting lost, the panic swelling Ensign Bossi’s throat as he tried and failed to raise anyone on his radio, the way the static distorted itself into something that sounded almost like words, screaming louder and louder until he took his hands off the controls to vainly cover his ears.

Jon sits up straight, blinking hard. He has to look around the room for a moment and really study the momentarily unfamiliar shelves before he can convince himself that he’s not strapped into a cockpit plunging toward the sea. He has never once learned anything pleasant or even tolerable. The message is clear: impossible knowledge will always, always hurt.

Bossi adds himself to Jon’s dreams that night, and Jon flies alongside him as his instruments all show completely nonsensical values, as the horizon warps into a circle, as—

It’s not really important, the _substance_ of the impossible knowledge. Just that he continues to find it more and more frequently. At the auction on October third Elias says nothing to him, only smiles, and Jon isn’t sure whether it’s impossible to know that he’s showing his approval of Jon’s recent practice. Maybe that should be the kind of implication that’s easy to intuit, but Jon has never been good with implication. So for him, yes: it’s impossible.

He tries not to sleep any more. Everything he dreams about is hideous and terrible. He can’t completely go without sleep, but it’s stopped being restful so there doesn’t seem much point. Tim progresses from cheerfully needling him about how terrible he looks to telling him to get some damned sleep to a worrying new sort of quiet.

Later in the week Jon finds out what that was about when he comes home to his dark flat and decides it’s not even worth turning the lights on. He hasn’t had much of an appetite—he’d be more worried if it weren’t a problem he’s had all his life—so he makes a sandwich by the light of the refrigerator and chews unenthusiastically on it, leaning against the countertop.

“Are your lights all out,” says a voice from the darkness. Jon jumps, and the plate smashes on the floor along with the remaining half sandwich. “Oh, fuck, sorry.” A pair of gleaming eyes materializes on the other side of the counter, followed by the rest of Gerry’s face. “I can make you another one if you like.”

Jon crouches to get the dustpan and brush and starts sweeping up the shards of ceramic. “Did Tim put you up to this?” he asks.

“Literally everyone put me up to this. It’s really obvious you aren’t well.”

“Have you figured out why, yet?” says Jon, with just a touch of acid.

“We all assume you’re trying to become an avatar again. Unless your book of impossible knowledge will let you see without that.”

“No. No, I don’t have the book. But this method is better than any other. No-one gets hurt.”

“You went _blind_.”

“For twelve hours.”

“That’s _really not the point_. Just because everything has worked out for you so far—”

“Excuse me? Everything’s worked out?”

“Please recall the first time we properly spoke. You had just tried to follow me and accidentally marked me for death by giant spider. You didn’t know what the hell you were doing, and you shouldn’t have been using the Powers at all. But nobody died. You also, for some reason, tried to go toe to toe with my mother, _after_ she died and became even more unpredictable, but because you had Gertrude looking out for you, you didn’t get a scratch. And then you went into the coffin marked DO NOT OPEN, after being told _four_ times by various people not to open it. And you went in twice. Do you even know why you made it out?”

“I-I was using the Vast to cancel—”

“No. Your trick with the Vast made it a little easier, but if you had ever wavered from thinking about Tim, you’d be worse than dead. The only thing that saved you was your anchor, and you didn’t even know about it. It would have been _so_ easy—” He stops, breathes in, breathes out. “You don’t ever seem to understand the risks you’re taking,” he says softly. Jon understands it to mean _I’m worried about you_ , and looks away, embarrassed. “I keep trying to tell you what it is to be an avatar, but it just doesn’t sink in.”

“There’s—there’s too much to do.”

Gerry stalks around the counter to loom over Jon, nothing but a pale face and his hand on the counter in the dark. “Do you _want_ to die?” he demands. “I’m trying to save you. I’ve done nothing but try to save you and every single time you throw it back in my face. I thought, you know, maybe for once I’ll try out caring about someone. Maybe this time it won’t—” His head swings away from Jon in his agitation, and his face utterly vanishes as it’s obscured by his hair.

“Gerry…” Jon waits to see if he’ll try to run off or something, but he doesn’t. “I’m not doing this to—to torment you. I’m doing what has to be done.”

“It _doesn’t have to be done_ ,” says Gerry in a choked, furious whisper. “It especially doesn’t have to be done by you. Or for once you could let us help.”

“People don’t help me,” says Jon. That really should have been obvious.

“We’ll help you! You utter—you know all of us would die for you? _You_ nearly died for Tim. Georgie adores you. Melanie won’t let anyone touch someone who’s hers. And you’re the only fucking friend I’ve ever had.”

Jon swallows. He feels strongly that this is the time when he’s supposed to touch Gerry’s hand, the only part of him Jon can actually see where it’s clenched into a fist on the countertop. But it’s a bad idea to touch someone who’s angry, he has no guarantee it will soothe more than irritate, and Jonathan Sims does not touch people. He has never been more frustrated by his complete lack of tools to show the kind of caring he’s supposed to feel. He doesn’t even know if he _does_ feel it, because he’s only ever seen it from the outside, from _normal_ people. Caring is touch. Touch is caring. Which means if he doesn’t understand one he cannot possibly understand the other.

“D-do you… d’you want a _hug_?” he manages, almost inaudibly.

Gerry looks around again, but it’s too dark to make out any expression on his face. He looks more menacing than ever, staring at Jon with gleaming shadowed eyes and towering over him by nearly a foot.

“Y-you can say no.”

Gerry takes a step toward him, and then he’s being hugged. His body doesn’t know what to do with itself or how to interpret any of what he’s feeling. He can practically feel the sudden frenzied production of neurochemicals his body’s nearly forgotten how to make, and certainly doesn’t remember their meanings. He pats Gerry weakly on the back.

“This solves nothing,” says Gerry into the side of Jon’s head. “I know a deflection when I see one.”

“I’m performing physical intimacy,” Jon snaps. “It’s something friends do.”

“Badly.” Gerry snorts, and releases Jon. “Look, are you _really_ set on becoming an avatar? Even though you know you’ll permanently terrify everyone? And the way you’re going you might start eating people’s nightmares?”

“It’s a price I’m paying. To help Tim. A-and everyone else.”

“How noble,” says Gerry, in a tone that indicates he does not think it is noble at all. “But since you’re decided, I’ll stop telling you not to, and you can stop avoiding us. I can talk to Melanie and Georgie about it, if you want.”

Jon smiles at him, on the assumption that he can see clearly in the dark. “Yes. Thank you.”

“I’m never going to let it go as long as you live. Which is going to be forever. You making dinner?”

“Wh—?”

“Fine, I’ll make something.” The refrigerator opens again, silhouetting Gerry against its blinding light. “ _All_ you’ve got is condiments.”

“Yes. That’s why I was eating a pickle sandwich.”

“You have eight different kinds of pickles and _nothing_ else.”

“If you don’t want to eat pickles directly out of the jar you’re welcome to go to the Lidl and buy something.”

“Nah, pickle sandwich sounds great.”

“Well, I’m sorry then, I’m out of bread.”

 

For the next two weeks Gerry seems to be concentrating quite a lot of energy on finding out when Jon is about to start studying again, because he turns up every time no matter where Jon is. Jon can hear him in the front of the shop explaining _something_ to Martin, too quietly to make out until… well, until Jon realizes it’s impossible to hear with normal human ears. Once it’s impossible knowledge, he can know it.

“Have _you_ ever tried dissuading him from something he’s decided? Unless you’re planning to go full Web on him there’s no way it’s going to happen.”

“He doesn’t understand what it’s going to mean!”

“Yeah, and explaining it to him doesn’t help. You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that one of your employees is an immortal nightmare eater. You have met him, right? He was marked by the Eye pretty much from birth.”

“What, like you?”

“No, I mean his personality.”

There’s a pause, and then Martin whispers, “It’s still an incredibly stupid idea to go to the Unknowing. You couldn’t let Gertrude handle it?”

“We can’t, but I can’t tell you why. It’s a secret I promised to keep.”

“Is it Tim? I know he’s doing _something_ stupid—not as stupid as Jon, but that’s a difficult bar to hit.”

“Like I said, it’s a secret I promised to keep. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be in here quite a bit to supervise. Since it’s your domain.”

“Since it’s ‘my domain’ don’t you think you should ask permission?”

“No. You can’t actually stop me. Plus, the cat likes me. That’s worth something.”

“She has no discrimination,” says Martin, but he laughs. “Fine. But don’t get into any fights with other avatars, or you’re out on your ear. I already had to give Mike and Distortion a first warning.”

“I don’t get into fights,” says Gerry. “And stop avoiding Jon, all right? There’s no point punishing him. It won’t help.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to him,” Martin mutters. Gerry shrugs and leaves the room; and Jon’s eye follows him into the back, where… where Jonathan Sims is sitting up and blinking, looking straight into… his own eyes, with an expression of terror.

“You all right?” asks Gerry.

“Th,” says the other Jon. He swallows visibly and finally looks away. “I-it’s—it’s fine. Just the aftereffects… I suppose impossible knowledge can’t exist without being… incredibly unpleasant.”

“That’s Beholding for you, yeah.”

Jon tries to flee back into his own brain, and for a moment he thinks he won’t be able to, that there will be _something else_ filling it up. But his awareness of his own body returns all at once and he sits up, blinking, breathing heavily, and looking up in terror at the place where he knows he was watching himself.

“You all right?” asks Gerry.

“Th,” says Jon. He can’t stop looking. No. No. He swallows and finally looks away. “I-it’s—it’s fine. Just the aftereffects… I suppose impossible knowledge can’t exist without being… incredibly unpleasant.”

“That’s Beholding for you, yeah.”

Jon tries to flee back into his own brain, for just a moment before he remembers he’s already there and looks down at his own hand in confusion. He clenches it into a fist. His grip is weak, as if he just woke up. “Gerry,” he says. “I saw the future. I saw myself waking up and talking to you, before I—I woke up.”

“That’s pretty standard,” says Gerry. Jon looks at him in disbelief. “Pure knowledge doesn’t take as long as actually experiencing things, right? So your perception moves a little faster than it would normally.”

“I saw the _future_.”

“Yeah? D’you want me to explain another way?”

“And then it happened exactly like I saw it. I couldn’t… I mean, I could have changed it. But I didn’t. I could have changed the future.”

“No, you couldn’t. I could do you about an hour-long lecture about the speed of information versus the speed of action, but I’d rather you just took my word for it that I know what I’m talking about.” Jon glares fiercely at him, and he sighs. “Yeah, I knew you’d go for the lecture.”

 

It boils down to this: most of the time Jon can see further into the future the further away he is. Because it would take him several hours to get to Yarmouth, he can see several hours into the future of the wax museum. If he had a phone and someone waiting there, however, he would only be able to see a minute into the future. So he’s just going to have to make do with seeing the present.

He spends his mornings doing proper work so Martin can’t be angry with him, and his afternoons poring over brochures and advertisements for the wax museum, with Gerry watching him or chatting with Tim in the front. And, well, still watching him, but through other means.

There’s the relatively useless impossible knowledge of ‘who is walking past on the street,’ which he nevertheless pays for by finding out secrets about the pedestrians he wishes he hadn’t. Then there’s the knowledge of what’s happening inside the museum, which seems subtly wrong. But Jon knows he doesn’t see anything untrue, so—so the proportion of humans inside _has_ been steadily decreasing, and the proportion of things that look very much like humans has increased to near eighty per cent. But it’s hard to look inside the museum. It always leaves Jon with a migraine; and trying to look into the basement, where he’s sure the ritual is going to be, is both painful _and_ useless. All he’s ever able to get is confused impressions of twisting or morphing or echoing forms in a vast room. The only thing that keeps him coming back is that slowly, slowly, it’s becoming clearer. If no less painful.

He dreams of the basement of the wax museum, now. His dreams aren’t all true, or at least they’re not about him, because he dreams of dying there, over and over and over. He dreams his ribs pulled cracking open; his skin peeled screaming away; his muscles reattached to the wrong bones to make a working, dancing body that looks nothing like a human any more. He dreams that his head has been set aside for later and he is watching more bodies assembled from raw materials, plastic hands sculpting meat into human shape.

Early every morning he wakes soaked in sweat with the Admiral meowing loudly in his ear, because Georgie no longer trusts him to take care of himself or communicate from home. He appreciates the gesture, both from her and from the cat. Anything that keeps him from being alseep. He feeds the Admiral, showers, and makes breakfast. It’s both a meditative period to forget his dreams and an apology for occupying Georgie’s home.

Georgie is a late sleeper, so she appears around ten and scoops food and coffee into her mouth until she wakes up properly. On his day off work she sits with him on the sofa and they each do their own type of research. Melanie is often there, and Gerry sometimes, but Tim never. As he says he needs a day off from every kind of spooky nonsense, not just the kind he gets paid for.

This is why, on the night of October thirtieth, Melanie is snoring on Jon’s shoulder while he composes neutralization methods for the Stranger to take a break from spying on it. She’s drooling into his sweater, which really, really makes him want to have a wash, but he doesn’t want to wake her. Anyone who can actually tolerate sleeping deserves as much as they can get.

“You want me to kick her out?” says Georgie softly as she enters from the kitchen. “Let you get to sleep?”

“I’d rather not sleep, but you can still kick her out if you want.”

“All right, hang on, I’ll get a picture. Gerry’s going to be delighted.”

Jon scowls at her as she raises her phone to photograph him, but he isn’t willing to move and wake Melanie. “On second thought, perhaps I’ll just let her have the sofa for tonight.”

Georgie perches on the arm of the sofa next to him and leans her arm on the back of it to run her fingers through his hair, as if she’s trying to comb it into order. He gives her an annoyed look, mostly on principle, and she smiles a little sadly. “D’you think you’ll stop having these nightmares after it’s over?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer, because they both know already. Instead he says, “Help me lay her down.”

When Melanie is safely drooling into a pillow Jon pulls off his sweater and uses it to wipe violently at his arm until he can at least trick himself into believing no trace of her spit remains. He carefully rolls it into a ball and drops it in the hamper, then settles into one of the armchairs and picks up his well-worn brochure for the museum.

“You really don’t have to be checking at all hours,” says Georgie. “If they weren’t ready four hours ago they won’t be now.”

But they are. The whole museum is vibrating with a sick, dizzying energy that wasn’t there before. “It’s tomorrow,” he whispers.

 

He wakes Melanie to ask for the keys to the van, calls Tim to help set the explosives. Despite the late hour Tim is grim and focused, with a look of tightly leashed excitement in his eyes. They pick up Gerry, and on the way to Yarmouth he borrows Jon’s phone to send Martin an email explaining that he and Tim won’t be in today. _Due to spooky circumstances_ , it concludes. _Love from, Gerry Jon & Tim_. Jon can’t quite manage a smile at this silliness. He’s too tense.

At this time of night the museum is locked up, but Melanie is of course very accomplished at picking locks and Gerry has some kind of confusing trick for fooling security systems, so they enter through a back door in silence, unnoticed.

It should be enough to set the explosives in the upper level, assuming it’s the ceiling of the basement room where the dance will be held. Jon tries to See the structure of the building, but he only becomes less and less sure that it actually is a building rather than some kind of… other thing, just pretending to be a building. So, with about thirty per cent of the explosives still left, they creep down the restricted stairs and into a storage room where the wire skeletons of unfinished waxworks are gathering dust. And then further down a long staircase that looks like it’s been hacked out of bedrock with a pickaxe, until they can peer around the corner into a large echoing hall that’s swarming with activity. What _kind_ of activity, though, even Jon can’t say. The sounds are all muddled into each other, and so are all the shapes. It’s hard to tell which are human forms merging as they pass, and which are things that happen to be made out of human parts. He feels sick and has to lean his forehead against the stone.

“There’s a few pillars that might work,” Gerry murmurs from somewhere behind him. “But I dunno how we’re going to get to them without anything seeing. And they’d notice a huge thing of plastic explosives. I’d say just put some in the stairway and hope it collapses inward.”

And once they’ve set all their explosives as unobtrusively as they can, they retreat to the storage room to wait.

There’s a whispered argument that lasts the better part of an hour on the subject of whether they all need to be here. Jon needs to stay because he has the best chance of keeping his wits about him during the dance. Tim needs to stay because he wants to push the button. Gerry insists he can push the button from somewhere else, until they realize that no-one’s phone gets signal  down here so he won’t know when it’s time. Then Melanie wants to stay as his bodyguard, Georgie thinks she’s more suited because she doesn’t feel fear, Gerry thinks _he’s_ more suited because he can use magic, and eventually everyone agrees that everyone should go, against all sense. By then it’s nearly six in the morning and they can’t leave and expect to sneak back in so easily, so they eat granola bars Georgie brought and Tim tries to convince everyone to play cards.

Jon allows himself to be dragged into Bridge, but loses his partner when Georgie breaks off to mutter to Gerry about—he strains his ears—how they’re going to make sure no civilians get hurt if the ritual is during open hours for the museum. The two of them go off, leaving Jon to lose miserably against a team of Melanie and Tim, and return some time later looking satisfied. By this point Jon’s nerves are fraying. He can’t take much more of Tim’s card games and he’s not at all sure how long it’s going to be before the ritual starts. He creeps away down the stairs to have a look; the activity in the hall is even more frenzied than ever. He can hear Nikola shouting directions at everyone and everything. Someone seems to be practicing on a calliope organ, under all the shrieking and groaning.

Jon returns upstairs to brood in the corner and watch everyone become steadily more irritated with Tim’s attempts to lighten the mood, until he and Melanie get into a whispered shouting match and Georgie has to sit on both of them to make them shut up. “Why don’t you go and check the explosives, Tim?” she hisses. “Maybe, Melanie, you can check too. Different ones.” She glares them both up the stairs to the museum, and then slides down the wall beside Jon with a sigh. “Anyone else think this is an awful idea?”

“Have from the beginning,” mutters Gerry peaceably. “But I don’t suppose Gertrude would do it for us at this point.”

Georgie closes her eyes and crosses her arms, wiggling into the wall to get more comfortable. “Well, I guess I can just hope those two take a while at it, then. Get over here, Gerry.”

Sitting with his shoulder pressed against Georgie’s doesn’t really alleviate the tension, but it does make Jon feel a little more certain of himself. She’s always certain, of who she is if nothing else. And Gerry is his own type of calming. The both of them are so unflappable in the face of genuine danger that it makes Jon feel they’ll survive. Left to his own devices Jon would be picking at Melanie and Tim, to distract himself.

He could use a distraction.

None is forthcoming, so he stews in miserable, anxious silence until Tim and Melanie return. He doesn’t like the wire skeletons of the half-made wax people in the storage room. He doesn’t like the distant sounds of something practicing on the calliope organ. He doesn’t like being able to feel his own heartbeat with such disconcerting heaviness.

“Explosives’re fine,” Melanie mutters as she and Tim come down through the doorway together. They seem to have worked _something_ out, since Melanie has a split lip and Tim a bruise forming high on his cheek. Melanie slumps into the wall by Gerry, and Tim next to her. She sighs and tips her head back. “All good to go.”

“I’ll check if it’s starting,” Jon offers; Melanie waves a hand at him like a queen who can’t be bothered with keeping track of all her courtiers. So he gets up and goes to the doorway downward, and jumps back with a yell when someone is standing in it.

“Waiting to get to the party fashionably late?” she says, advancing on him. “I must insist you come down and help set up.”

The music fills his ears. The shadows writhe on the walls like living things. The half-made waxworks come down off their stands and begin to walk. Somewhere, someone is screaming in rage or fear or another emotion he’s forgotten the name of, or maybe even singing, but all he can concentrate on is the other person’s hand in his, leading him in a strange prancing dance down the stairs. “The hostess will want to see you all,” she says.

His head is spinning. He doesn’t want to disappoint, but he has to ask, “Er, sorry, and who are we?”

She smiles. “We’re the guests of honor! You’re Jon, and I’m Melanie. We’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while.”

“Oh… have we? What is it?”

“The dance!”

They whirl out into a vast sparkling hall filled with light and noise, dancers moving in intricate interlocking patterns as if they’re on tracks. It’s all so beautiful he feels he doesn’t belong, and he’s having a lot of difficulty operating his… er… well, his things, which he’s forgotten the name of. He’s not _that_ sure they’re his, anyway. He has a feeling, though. A bad feeling? It’s probably ‘bad.’

“Are you _sure_ I want to be here?” he asks.

“Of course you don’t want to be here,” says Melanie. Her face seems to twist into a different shape with the force of her emotion. “We’re enemies, Silver Tongue, you and I. And I’m going to skin you before this night is over.”

He pushes away from Melanie—no, _not_ Melanie—and looks around, trying to find any path through the turning figures around him. Some of them are… are… What is he here for? Think, _think_ , what is he here for? He’s buffetted this way and that as he makes his way through the dance, barely able to remember how his legs work. Yes—legs. That’s good. He has legs. He’s at a dance, and he has legs, and he’s trying to find someone.

On the raised platform in the middle of the room a light is shining down, illuminating two beautiful figures as they dance. One is tall and broad and dark-haired; the other has no hair at all but a wonderful coat made of… Jon squints at it, feeling that somehow it’s important. Something he’s seen before. Paper? No…

“I know you thought I was dead,” says the figure in the coat. “I mean, I was! But I’m so happy now. And I’m even happier now that you’ve joined me. I missed you, Tim.”

“I… I-I missed you too,” says Tim. “I can’t believe you let me think you were dead for… how long was it?”

“Only a couple years. That’s not long at all.”

“Oh. Okay, then. But I did miss you.”

“Who are you?” Jon asks them, yelling to be heard over the music. “You’re beautiful!”

They twirl over closer to him. One of them is smiling. The other has no face. “Thanks,” says the one with the face. “I’m Tim, I think?”

“And I’m his brother, Danny!”

“No, who ARE you?”

“I’ll tell you a secret,” says the one without a face. Seamlessly he switches partners and now Jon is dancing with him. He leans in close. “My name is Jurgen Leitner. You’ve both been looking for me, haven’t you?”

“Y—yes?”

“Well, you haven’t been doing a very good job. I heard that you got me killed as soon as I spoke to you. How’s that for friendship?”

“Er… you… you don’t seem dead?”

Leitner laughs. “How could I be alive? No-one here is, except you. You stick out like a sore thumb. Tim,” he says, and his voice seems to shift. “Tim, this bloke here is alive. That doesn’t really look good at a party like this, does it?”

“No,” says Tim. He seems dazed. “No, I guess it doesn’t.” He’s holding something with… an edge. Heavy? Ax…le. Ax…iom.

He swings it, and Jon frowns, still trying to remember what it’s called.

 _Swish. Thud._ He’s looking along the ground at a headless body and two heads leaning down to peer at him. Oh, yes, it was just _ax_.

“Who has the detonator?” he whispers, with the last of the breath left in his throat.

“I do,” says Tim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two kinds of onion pickle, mango pickle, gooseberry pickle, cucumber pickle, beet pickle, watermelon pickle, and radish pickle. I'm a pickle enthusiast! I have to stay true to my heart and tell you about the contents of Jon's fridge.
> 
> and yes, Tim did just kill Jon. I'm sure if he remembers this he'll feel terrible later.


	12. Chapter 12

It’s dark here, yet gleaming. Little shining things are ticking or turning or twitching, half obscured in shadow. He wants—

Well. There’s a _he_.

And there’s _wants_.

He wants to examine them more fully. He sits up and peers at the nearest mechanism, an assemblage of gears that he can’t quite see all of without going _inside_ it. Sitting on the top is a small gear that, as he looks more closely, has even finer details on the surface. There’s an entire tiny dance happening on a platform the size of his palm, with mechanisms so small that he can barely make them out. He leans down to put his eye on a level with the surface, pulls his focus in closer, and realizes that countless humanoid figures are turning on tracks, changing partners and sometimes even merging into each other, somehow exchanging their parts, and then separating again with different numbers of limbs. He marvels at how small it is, impossible for any human being to make. In the center, the shaft of the gear pokes up just a little from the surface, and two people—no, three—are on top. One of them is lying on the ground, in two pieces.

That one is him.

He jerks up and nearly brains himself on a low pipe or arm that’s slowly swinging overhead, then hastily corrects to stand carefully in the small space not filled with intricate clockwork. All around him gears are grinning at him, showing their many, many teeth.

“I’m… dead,” he says. The hungry, ticking darkness swallows up his words. “I shouldn’t be anywhere if I’m dead.”

There’s a flurry of movement, and as he looks around he sees that the swinging arm has reached its destination and set off some sort of reaction that’s reconfiguring the machine. Parts of it flip around, parts unscrew other parts, a tower constructs itself in the middle and a light flips on, centered on him. A spotlight, throwing dazzling reflections off the polished clockwork around him, but focused only on him.

Something goes _ding_ in front of him, and he looks down to see that part of the machine has made itself into a typewriter. The keys are working by themselves to type out a message that slides toward him with each _clikclikclikclik ding!_

TO JONATHAN SIMS, SILVER TONGUE.  
YOU HAVE DIED. YOUR FAITH EXCEEDED YOUR ABILITY.   
YOU TRIED TO SEE, AND YOU COULD NOT, SO YOU WERE  
KILLED. BUT THERE IS A WAY TO ENSURE THAT THIS  
NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

The keys fall still, waiting. “What is it?” Jon asks.

BECOME ___. BEHOLD.

He hesitates. He can remember Martin and Gerry telling him not to do this, and he knows they had good reasons. He just can’t fathom what they might be right now. “What will happen if I don’t?”

YOU ARE TOO HUMAN TO LIVE AND TOO MUCH OF ___   
TO DIE. YOU WILL BE HERE. YOU WILL SEE OUT OF THIS  
PLACE. YOU WILL DECAY. YOU WILL FOLD. YOU WILL  
ACCEPT THE OFFER. YOU KNOW THIS, AS ___ DO.

“I’ve wanted this all my life,” he says, and smiles suddenly to himself. “Of course I accept.”

With sharp precision a small tray slides out from the side of the typewriter. There is… a projector transparency sitting on it. He holds it up to the spotlight that still gazes down at him and looks more closely. An old man is thrashing in his bed, remembering something terrible. Jon can see through the tiniest crack in his eyelid what he’s dreaming. It never should have happened to him, or anyone, but it did, and even when he is awake he is so afraid it will happen again. It would be easy to push in further and taste all his emotions. To take them apart piece by piece and understand how his terror has made him who he is. Jon _wants_ to know.

He is also disgusted with himself.

He puts the slide back down on its tray and backs away, shaking his head. Under his feet more little slides crunch and slither. “No,” he says. “You’re not the first to tell me I’ll become a nightmare eater. But I won’t.”

 _Clikclikclikclik_ _ding!_

FOREVER IS A VERY LONG TIME, AND YOU WILL NEVER  
BECOME MORE HUMAN THAN YOU ARE AT THIS MOMENT.  
ONLY LESS. ENJOY THE DANCE.

He slips in the rising tide of projector slides and falls, now looking up through them at the spotlight. They pour over his face, each unmoving but the whole torrent of them making a single, moving picture: two pairs of legs dancing in front of him, and a coat swirling around both that he can now clearly understand is made from two haphazardly-stitched-together human skins. Tim has the detonator. Tim has the detonator. Before Jon makes his move, he needs to make sure everyone gets out.

He twitches his fingers slightly, and three feet away he sees them move. Slowly he reaches out and feels for his head—slowly, slowly pulls it toward him and feels it seal itself back onto his neck. He turns it to look out toward the staircase, where the dance has turned into more of a swarm. Melanie and Gerry are fighting to get to Georgie, through a crowd of things that no longer look anything like humans. If he can cause a big enough distraction, they can get away. He isn’t so sure about Tim, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

So the next time the dancers come near him, he grabs Nikola’s ankle and pulls it to the ground, nearly taking Tim with it. “The detonator, Tim!” he shouts. Leaps to his feet and faces the stairway: “GET OUT NOW!”

Tim’s face is swollen and shining with tears, as if he’s been crying for a while already. “J-Jon?”

Jon kicks Nikola off the platform into the crowd and grabs Tim by the shoulders. “Which pocket is it in?” he asks, and Tim answers automatically:

“Inside left in my jacket.”

“The others are getting out,” says Jon as he pulls out the detonator. He doesn’t even have to look behind him. “I-I think I can keep you safe when the roof falls in, but you don’t have to stay. Only if you want to.”

“I killed you,” Tim whispers under the music.

“And I’m fine now. This isn’t really the time to be discussing that, is it? We don’t have a large window. They’ll leave the building in one minute, thirty-nine seconds, unless something changes. We have to stay alive until then.”

“I’ll make that longer if I try to leave,” says Tim. He’s staring down at Nikola as it struggles out from between two dancers that seem about to crush it. “I’ll stay. Doesn’t really matter if I die, does it? I’ll still get what I wanted.”

“It matters,” Jon hisses. “You’ve got an ax, haven’t you? Use it.”

Tim begins to laugh. He looks like a dancer himself as he whirls to bury it in the nearest not-human thing. It stumbles and tries to continue dancing until he lops off its legs and starts on its partner. Dancers begin to pile up behind the cloud of sawdust and sloughing skin, and Jon turns his back to Tim’s to face Nikola as it climbs back up.

“You’ve ruined _everything_ ,” it says. “But not as thoroughly as you like to think. You’re going to _wish_ you could die by the time I’m done with you.”

Jon watches it as it circles, trying to get closer to Tim. “What do you want with him, anyway?” he asks.

“He’s so very afraid. He still has nightmares about dear, dear Danny. He dreams about losing his skin. He dreams about _me_ putting him on.” It sighs happily. “You, Silver Tongue, are never as afraid as you should be. You’re too stupid to be afraid.”

It lunges for the detonator in his hand and he realizes too late. But the clock is ticking down in his head. He yells, “GET BACK HERE, TIM!” and crushes the trigger against Nikola’s plastic hand. When the explosions start, it freezes and stands there looking up, as if unable to believe what it’s seeing. Jon takes his opportunity to tackle Tim off the edge of the platform. It’s just raised enough that there might be a safe place around the edge—Jon presses Tim down into the corner and props himself up sideways over him, just as the first chunks of the ceiling begin to crash down onto the dancers.

Jon’s legs are crushed almost immediately. He _screams_. No, no, this was a terrible idea, he should have thought of something better, what’s going to happen if his _head_ is crushed? Can his patron reconstitute his brain? What will he be if it does? All this flashes through his mind in an instant before he shoves his head into Tim’s chest, down under the lip of the platform, muffling his hoarse screaming. Tim mutters a stream of inarticulate prayers as he pulls Jon closer by a fistful of his shirt. Another chunk of the ceiling falls across them, compressing Jon’s back as it settles with an awful grinding noise.

Boom. _Boom_. Rumble. _Crack_. Jon feels like he’s going to vomit up his heart.

And then most of it is done. In the distance he can hear smaller debris falling, but the ceiling is as destroyed as it’s going to get. Jon’s scream has died down to a whimper, and then he and Tim are both sobbing-coughing, unable quite to get enough air and choking on dust. They cry together for a long time, until Jon is exhausted and numb and can’t even imagine motivating himself to move.

Tim whispers, “We’re alive. We fucking did it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We _did_ it!”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up, Jon, we stopped the world ending and we’re not even dead. Actually, don’t shut up, if I stop talking I’m going to freak the fuck out, it’s too close, I can’t breathe, it’s too tight…”

“We’re not going to die,” Jon slurs at him. “Tim, listen, we’re not going to die here. We’re not going to be stuck. This isn’t like the coffin.”

“It felt like weeks,” Tim moans. Jon steadfastly ignores him.

“Tim. As soon as I… we’re going to shift this rubble, and we’re going to climb out of here. It’s going to be fine.”

Tim has started sobbing again.

Jon carefully disengages Tim’s hand from his shirt and tries to slide off him into the smaller space beside him. He needs to… get his legs. If he can just connect them it will be fine, he’s sure it will be fine. But they’re under several hundred kilos of rubble. They’re probably pulp.

To forestall another panic attack he fumbles his phone out of his pocket, surprised to find it still working, able to produce light. There are a few places where Tim might be able to squeeze out, if he gets a hold of himself.

The process of encouraging him to do that takes a long time. Jon takes a break to text the group chat Melanie has named ‘down with rooves’ that they’re both still alive but it might take a while to get out. And it’s probably not a good idea for anyone to walk on the rubble, lest they collapse it more. Melanie calls him almost immediately.

“Jon! What the hell! I thought we were supposed to get out!”

“Is that Melanie?”

“Tim? Put your phone on speaker. Hey, Tim, haven’t died of idiocy yet?”

“Jon’s idiocy nearly did for me, but no, not yet.” He actually laughs, in a breathy, disbelieving sort of way. “Just need to wiggle out of here. How’s that for extreme sports?”

“I’m sure they’ll name a whole new extreme sport after you. They’ll call it Stoking. And everyone will think it’s bloody confusing. What are you sitting around for? Stoke!”

“Yeah? Yeah, a-a-all right. I’ll leave the phone with Jon, though, try not to miss me too much.”

There’s a pause while Tim starts to worm his way out through one of the larger gaps. “How’s he doing?” snaps Melanie.

“Good. Fine. He must be at least halfway out.”

“If only he weren’t so broad-shouldered,” Melanie says, but her heart isn’t really in the teasing when Tim can’t hear her. “Why aren’t you going, then? You’re like, half his size.”

“More like a quarter, now,” says Jon with a strained smile. “A third, at most. I-I’m sure when I find the rest of my legs they’ll… g-go back on.”

Melanie shrieks so loudly into the phone that Jon drops it, and from the sound above him he thinks it startled Tim too. “Keep going, Tim,” he says. “Just Melanie getting upset at nothing important.”

“I’ll show you nothing important,” she hisses. “Says he lost his fucking legs, and he has the nerve to tell me it’s nothing important. Can he actually make them go back on? He did die. Not sure I believe that.”

“Maybe,” says Gerry’s distant, tinny voice.

“I did die,” Jon admits.

“This is fucked.”

“…Yes.”

Jon listens to the faint argument that’s happening on the other end of the phone for about a minute before Tim’s voice floats down from some three meters up. “Made it out! Jon, can you hear me?”

“Yes! Is there any way you can… shift anything?”

“No, come on, just come up the way I came up. It’ll be easier for you.”

Jon swallows, and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s the only way, isn’t it. He’ll just have to leave his legs down here. By the time anyone digs them out they’ll be… “All right,” he says, unable to keep his voice steady. “Melanie, I’ll have to call you back. I need both hands.”

“Come back safe or I’ll kill you,” she says, and hangs up.

He puts the phone away and begins the gruelling process of dragging himself up over the sharp edges of shattered or pulverized concrete, twisted steel girders, slipping on loose fragments. By the time he makes it to the surface he’s covered in scratches and dust. Tim tries to pull him to his feet, realizes that he hasn’t got any, and nearly drops him.

“Your legs,” he whispers.

“We’re alive. Like you said.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Tim. “I can’t believe I let you…” He shakes his head. Takes a deep breath, and sets Jon down very gently. “Are you still bleeding?”

“Um… no, I think that among my new superpowers is self-cauterizing wounds.”

Tim runs one hand through his hair. “Right, yeah. Okay. How are we going to get out of here?” Jon looks up to see that they’re at the bottom of a massive pit, several storeys deep, where the domed hall used to be. It’s unspeakably lucky that there were only two floors up there, and the roof of the wax museum hasn’t even fully collapsed. It could have been so much worse.

Jon’s phone vibrates again in his pocket, and he picks up. “Did you make it out?” demands Georgie.

“Yes. We’re at the bottom of the pit now. But we’ll be fine for a while until someone finds a rope.”

“You idiot, the first thing I did was call EMS. I don’t know if they have rope, actually, but—Gerry! Can you run to the nearest hardware store and get just… a massive amount of rope? Good. Gerry’s on it. We’ll get you out of there. Just hold on.”

Jon leans back against Tim, who’s finally sat down next to him. “Keep talking until then?”

“Of course.”

 

Nobody really questions their story that they were visiting the museum at the time of the explosion. Most of the investigative efforts are being put toward figuring out who actually blew the damned thing up, and nobody seems to think anyone would be stupid enough to blow themselves up with it. Losing his legs turns out to be the perfect alibi.

Every doctor who talks to him seems shocked that he didn’t die of blood loss, that his kneecaps haven’t splintered into his flesh, that aside from not _having_ lower legs any more he’s perfectly fine. Still, they insist he stay in the hospital for several  days ‘for observation,’ along with Tim, who is being treated for shock. Georgie takes a break from podcasting to spend long periods relaxing in Jon’s room (as much as anyone can relax in a hospital room), bringing Tim with her. Though Gerry has a shop to run, she says the books she brings are ones he picked out for them. He’s gotten Tim one on the influence of Near Eastern architecture on European art, which Tim’s confessed he wasn’t expecting to enjoy quite so much. Jon has another biography and a dense metatextual analysis of the Bible, which _he_ wasn’t expecting to enjoy. Gerry’s being _sweet_ again, and Jon is grateful that he can only thank him by text message. _Did Beholding give you the ability to pick specifically tea and books for people?_ he writes.

 _That’s all me_ , Gerry replies. _I’ve worked hard learning to read people, so I won’t have you thinking I got given it_. About a minute later he adds, _Glad you like them_.

Jon spends a while practicing getting around in a wheelchair, sitting for X-rays, getting told he needs more iron in his diet, and sundry other annoyances. Tim hangs around past when he’s ready to be discharged, possibly to help Jon with the one stupid step that goes down into the garden when he wants not to be inside the hospital any more. Jon almost wonders whether the staff tell him he can go tomorrow just to get rid of Tim, because they seem to have no end of tests they want to run.

The night before he’s due to be discharged, the entirety of the Unknowing crew (as he’s begun to think of them; Georgie’s fault) invades his room with gin and Indian takeaway.

“You could have waited one day and had a party somewhere actually pleasant,” he points out. All the visiting chairs have disappeared under suspicious circumstances, leaving everyone to sit on Jon’s bed where they certainly don’t fit. “Or did you do this so I wouldn’t have the option to flee?”

“You didn’t flee from the world-ending clown puppet ritual,” says Tim, and drinks half a plastic cup of fruity gin cocktail in one go. “Hey, this is pretty damn good.”

“Cheers to Georgie for making them,” says Melanie. She’s sat cross-legged at the head of the bed, forcing Jon to make room on his own pillow for her. Gerry had referred to Jon as ‘someone who’s hers,’ which he can only assume is why she has the presumption to sling her arm over the bedrail behind him. “Tim, I should have asked before, but what are you going to do? I mean, now you’ve done what you needed to. Me and Georgie are going to keep hunting for freaky shit, obviously, but…”

“I dunno,” says Tim. “I… It’s not like I can get away from it now. But I do kind of value my free time.”

Melanie’s face is very normal, and Jon may be the only one who feels her tense. “That’s reasonable,” she says.

“Of course you’re welcome at the shop at any time,” says Jon quickly. “So long as you don’t scare away customers.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Tim. “I mean, I like you all a lot. We can always go out. For drinks. Or whatever.”

“We should do a day trip and go out to the mountains or something,” Georgie says. “I know Jon hates physica—” And then she stops, having realized that she’s sitting where Jon’s legs would be if he had them.

“I certainly won’t stop you. I’m sure the four of you will have a lovely time.”

Gerry gives him a murderous glare, which means he’s confused or perhaps slightly affronted. “There’s not a ‘the four of us.’ You’re the reason we’re here. There’s no _us_ without _you_.”

Jon looks down and swallows. Melanie’s arm comes around his shoulders, and she says, “Right, you’ll never be rid of us now. And if you really want to go up a mountain, I’ll make Tim carry you.”

“Maybe I’ll make you carry him,” says Tim, and tries an approximation of a boxer’s stance sitting down.

“I don’t want to be carried by anyone.”

“Lovely,” says Georgie. “Then there’s no need to fight over it. If you just want to fight anyway, don’t do it on the bed. I know Gerry’s, er, magically blocking out security footage, but someone’s going to notice if we break it.”

For some reason Tim snorts and starts laughing behind his hand. Melanie, and then Georgie, catch it too. “What’s so funny?” Jon snaps.

“It’s a sex thing,” all three of them answer, in eerie unison. Tim blinks and shakes his head like a dog trying to clear its ears of water, grinning. “You know, I’m not even mad you used your spooky powers on us, because that was fucking gold.”

“Don’t do it again,” Melanie says. Tim kicks her knee, and she cracks a smile. “It was funny, though.”

The awkward silence has barely started when Tim announces that this is now a wake: “‘Cos we survived, against all odds. Here’s to everyone who didn’t.” Drinks are poured; Tim holds his up and says, “To Danny. He fucking deserved better, but I hope he’s resting easy knowing I got the bastard who killed him.”

Jon knocks back his drink with the rest of them. “Here’s to Nikola, who I’m really glad didn’t survive!” says Melanie. She looks at Jon.

“Er, to Jurgen Leitner. A man who did terrible things just because he could, and then died for it.”

“To Gertrude Robinson,” says Georgie. “Not really sure if she’s dead, but here’s to her snuffing it soon so she can keep her claws out of our business.”

Gerry starts pouring new drinks for everyone. As he pours he says solemnly, “To Mary. She was a fucking terrible mother, and I’m glad she’s dead and I have her money now. I’ll miss her.” He drinks, and sighs. “Maybe I ought to sell the shop. Hunt full time with you two.”

“We do both have actual jobs, you know,” says Georgie. “But you’d be welcome.”

“First time for everything,” he murmurs, smiling into his drink.

“You know, I don’t think we really ever said what it is we do?” says Melanie. She holds out her cup to Tim, the current custodian of the gin and cocktail mix. “I mean normally, when the stakes are a bit lower. I know I’ve told you I’m friends with Mikaele Salesa, but you might like to hear how we met…”

They all have stories, as they get steadily tipsier and finish the bottle and the takeaway. Melanie wedges herself into Jon’s side and steals one of his pillows to tell her story to the ceiling; Tim lies down on her stomach with his legs sticking through the rails at the foot of the bed; Gerry lies across him and Georgie, who’s curled into Jon’s lap very much like the Admiral sometimes will. He’s too sleepy to object, too warm. The room blurs and darkens, and he falls.

Like always, he’s in a new nightmare. In this one he’s lying on the ceiling as if weighted upward by some immense gravity, unable to close his eyes to the seething floor of cockroaches trying to find a way in through the barricaded door. But he’s not alone. Beholding can’t take that from him, it can’t stop him from Knowing that when he wakes up they’ll be there, waking up too with hangovers and trying to pretend they’ve just come early to pick him up. He Knows they’ll be there, that this won’t last forever. So he focuses all his will into trying to open his mouth and tell the sobbing woman in the next room that she’s not alone here either.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bittersweet is, I think, about the best we can hope for. Thanks for reading. <3


End file.
